Addicted to Hope: The Qult of Qanon

Ryan Matters

Here’s a scenario.

You’re part of an organization that wants to steer the world towards an Orwellian type society where you control every aspect of human life. But there’s one problem. A growing number of people are awakening to the reality of how the world is run and they don’t like it. These people are intelligent, have the ability to think critically and are a threat to your operation.

What do you do?

Here’s one solution. You use your knowledge of predictive programming and psychological manipulation to craft an intelligence operation designed to distract and misdirect. These people are smart. More mainstream media propaganda and censorship is only going to fuel their suspicions.

You assume the identity of the “good guys” and feed people just enough truth to keep them hooked. You ease people’s anxieties by providing them with the hope they so desperately want, and you make their lives easier by offering to do all the critical thinking for them.

After a while, your reach grows, and more and more people begin following your intel until eventually, the operation gains its own momentum. Now your job becomes easier because instead of working to convince people you’re legit, others do it for you.

This is not an article I ever thought I would write. It’s not even an article I particularly want to write. In fact, I’d never heard of Q up until a few months ago. So why am I writing about it?

At the end of last year, I spent a few months tentatively following the Q movement. And during that time, I was quite disturbed by what I saw.

Don’t get me wrong, the Q movement isn’t filled with nutcases. Quite the contrary. There are some very smart and very illustrious people who are completely and totally wrapped up in the Q narrative.

What disturbed me is the faith and conviction that so many people have towards Q, despite the lack of convincing evidence. What else has disturbed me? The hypocrisy.

Many Q followers constantly lambaste people for not thinking critically but then fail to realise that, by blindly following Q, they are no better than those that they condemn.

WHAT IS QANON?

Qanon is a movement that began in 2017 when anonymous posts began appearing on the 4Chan message board. The posts then moved to 8Chan and now they appear on 8Kun. The poster signs itself as ‘Q’ and alludes to being a high-level military insider with direct connections to President Trump.

The main theme of the Q movement is this. There is a secret, silent war being waged between the ‘alliance’ (Q, good guys) and the deep state (a global cabal that controls banking and world governments through the use of blackmail and satanic rituals) with President Trump leading the charge.

Q’s posts (also called ‘drops’) are vague and often need to be ‘decoded’ by those who have learned to understand the language of Q. Since 2017, when the Q drops began, there have been thousands of posts. And during this time Q has grown into a global movement, garnering the interest and support of many thousands of individuals.

QANON: A BELIEF SYSTEM

At its core, Qanon is based on faith. It’s a belief system.

“Trust the plan.”

That is Q’s motto.

There are clear parallels between Qanon and organised religion. Q is like God, President Trump is the Messiah (think Jesus, Mohammed, etc), and the people that ‘decode’ and relay Q’s messages are the priests.

There is no evidence to suggest that Q represents a group of ‘white hats’ inside the military-political complex who are working to overthrow the cabal. In fact, besides the encoded posts that appear on 8Kun, there is no evidence to suggest that Q even exists as a real entity.

Many people claim that Q is a group of people, all of which work closely with President Trump. Yet this is also a theory, a belief.

There are well-known people who have built up huge followings just by preaching about and interpreting Q’s drops.

Many of these people claim to have ‘insider information’ about Q and access to various ‘secret sources’ who feed them information from the top. These sources are never revealed of course, and you are simply expected to believe it’s all true. There’s that word again. Belief.

But even if such sources were real, who’s to say they aren’t purposefully feeding them misinformation?

Just as many Christians believe the word of God, no matter how insane it seems, so do Qanon followers believe the words of Q and its apostles.

As I stated before, last year I spent a few months following the Qanon movement from afar. During that time, I heard many outlandish claims, none of which have come true.

Some of these include mass arrests of influential figures, the institution of a gold-backed financial system, the declassification of intelligence reports, and the release of extra-terrestrial technologies. I have heard all of this. In fact, many of these predictions have been floating around for years now.

Yet here we are well into 2021 and President Trump has left office, none of Qs predictions have come true and there hasn’t been a new Q drop since the 9th of December.

While many anons are distraught and disillusioned (this is not how things were supposed to go!), devout Qanon followers are still reassuring people that the arrests are coming and that the plan is about to come to fruition. Yet, it never does. The deadline is constantly pushed back. “Next month it’s coming”. “okay, next week it’s finally going to happen!” “Definitely sometime before the end of the year.”

False promises, catchy ‘party lines’ and the allure of special insider knowledge are classic cult tactics that Q uses to ensnare the unwary.

DISTRACT THEM WITH HOPE

Catherine Austin Fitts from the Solari Report summed up Qanon is two words.

“Hope porn.”

The whole purpose of the Q movement is to convince people that, no matter what happens, they should “trust the plan” because everything is going to work out.

In a world that is full of darkness, a little bit of hope goes a long way.

In fact, I would argue that the reason people follow Q with such resolve is because they have become addicted to the hope and positivity of Q’s message.

There’s nothing wrong with hope or positivity when it’s based on fact. But when it comes to “the plan”, not even the most devoted Qanon disciple could tell you exactly what that is.

I wouldn’t hesitate to call Qanon a marketing ploy.

The pseudo-military coding used in the drops, the use of known marketing tactics and proven copywriting formulas to grab people’s attention. Whoever, or whatever is behind Q, is clever. Very clever.

Here’s a recent Q drop. There are a few things to note here about how Q writes.

First off, note how Q constantly asks questions but never answers them. This is a classic copywriting trick. Questions are a proven way to engage and involve your readers. The use of questions in written works is a method of creating a rapport with the reader – getting the reader to like you.

In fact, psychology has shown that people like people who ask questions and this also translates into writing. Q’s use of open-ended questions is a method of keeping people involved and directing attention.

In other words, Q uses questions to direct (and therefore misdirect) people’s focus. And why would you want to keep people focused on something specific? To distract them from what’s really going on.

Q also uses a lot of imperatives. In other words, Q gives commands. Again, this is a classic marketing trick. You may recognise some of the following imperative slogans used in advertising:

“Just do it.”

“Think different.”

“Taste the rainbow.”

“Build back better.”

And of course, Q’s “trust the plan.”

Q also uses statements that are aimed at reassuring people. How do you keep people calm during such a difficult time? How do you keep people’s focus and attention on you instead of the Orwellian plan that’s unfolding around them?

You reassure them with catchy phrases like “Nothing can stop what is coming.”

But has anyone ever asked the question: “What IS coming?” or “What IS the plan?”

DUMBING DOWN THE INTELLIGENT, MAKING PEOPLE PASSIVE

It seems likely that the real purpose of Q is to stifle critical thinking and make people passive.

By feeding people just enough truth to keep them satisfied, they are less likely to spend time researching things themselves.

There is little need to do your own research or employ your critical thinking faculties when you know there is an elite group of insiders doing that for you.

What happens when you believe there’s a gang of good guys who have a rock-solid plan to defeat the deep state and bring harmony and peace to the world?

You stop rebelling, you stop fighting. You become passive.

This is a classic military tactic. In fact, Sun Tzu says in the Art of War that “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

That is the goal of Q – to subdue people with hope. This way they won’t react to the atrocities around them. They won’t fight back against the agenda. And by the time they realise what has happened, it will be too late.

Q often makes mistakes and incorrect predictions. Yet, instead of questioning this, Qanon followers claim that this is done on purpose to ‘misdirect’ the enemy.

It’s a fair argument, I won’t lie. But it also creates a problem. It means that Q always has an out. Q can never be held accountable for being wrong or misleading people. How convenient.

Qanon followers are constantly finding patterns where non exist. In fact, we all do this to some extent. It’s called ‘apophenia’. Q relies on this to keep the illusion going.

I have witnessed many Qanon followers on YouTube analysing President Trump’s tweets for ‘coded messages’ that relate to Q. They then come up with elaborate and far-fetched explanations for what these might mean.

The Q phenomena has a secondary objective – to conceal serious and real issues. For example, child trafficking and ritual abuse have now been stuffed into the Q envelope and filed under “discredited conspiracy theories”.

“Anti-vaxxers” and “COVID deniers” are also lumped with the QAnon crowd in an attempt to draw attention away from common sense and create an increasingly divided population.

WHAT Q DOESN’T TALK ABOUT

Qanon followers are enamored by what Q says, but very rarely do they consider what Q doesn’t say.

For example, if Q really were part of a high-level inside group, why wouldn’t they have said something about an upcoming fake pandemic?

It’s very clear that, contrary to what many Qanon supporters claim, the banks are gaining more and more power. The COVID scamdemic has destroyed small businesses and forced the population into a massive debt trap, the likes of which have never been seen before.

But Q is silent.

What about when care homes were locked down and the elderly were being culled? Was that part of the plan?

What about the use of high-dose HQC, toxic antiviral drugs and ventilators that resulted in thousands of excess deaths in the US and Europe?

Again, Q was silent.

What about the current rollout of dangerous vaccines, COVID ‘passports’, 5G, and Bill Gates’ patents for a body-activated cryptocurrency system?

Crickets.

We’re watching lockdown-induced genocide along with the steady deterioration of human rights, freedoms, and finances. But Qanon followers continue to believe that it’s “all part of the plan.”

When will the lightbulb turn on? Will it?

WHAT IS Q REALLY?

The truth is that nobody knows.

Bernard Grover makes a convincing case that Q is a military intelligence PsyOp that’s being run by the GEC (Global Engagement Center) which was established by the Defense Authorization Act of 2017, shortly before Q began posting.

More recently, people have begun linking QAnon to “Operation Trust” – a 1920s Bolshevik counterintelligence operation aimed at neutralizing communist opposition.

Of course, it’s impossible to verify these theories, but we can apply the principle of Occam’s Razor to get a clearer idea. Occam’s razor is a problem-solving aid that states that the simplest explanation is probably the right one.

So, which is simpler, a or b?

• A. Q represents a high-level group at the top of the military and political complex. They have a direct link to President Trump and have chosen him to spearhead the charge against the deep state. This group of ‘white hats’ has been waging a secret, silent war against the cabal. They have chosen to reveal details about this war to the public via an online message board, frequented by delinquents and trolls. Despite the continued march toward an Orwellian, globalist society and recently perpetrated mass genocide, it’s actually all part of a secret plan to usher in a new age of harmony and peace.
• B. Q is an intelligence operation being run with advanced computer algorithms. Its purpose is to manipulate people’s perceptions, create passivity, and distract people from the truth.

It seems quite clear that the second explanation is much simpler than the first.

WHY QANON APPEALS TO PEOPLE

Simply put, Qanon appeals to the ego. The ego is an evolutionary construct formed out of the need to survive. The ego is our sense of “I”.

The ego/mind is composed of an endless stream of opinions, assumptions, attitudes, viewpoints and prevailing social personalities.

Qanon makes people feel as if they have secret knowledge that others don’t and are, therefore ‘special’. This appeals to the narcissistic core of the ego that always wants to be ‘better’ than other people or feel unique in some way.

The ego is attracted by conundrums that have little value. Qanon feeds the ego’s appetite for wonder and intrigue. Qanon followers are welcomed into an “inner circle” where they feel as if they are part of a grand plan and this feeds the ego’s sense of pride.

The ego struggles to see the forest from the trees and instead gets stuck contemplating problems, irrelevancies, and diversions, all of which Q provides.

The ego enjoys labels. It stubbornly takes stances such as ‘this is bad and this is good’. It is always asking questions and seeking answers. The ego is constantly embroiled in drama, which it loves.

Q supplies the ego with the excitement, drama and sense of safety that it so desires.

Dr. David Hawkins was a renowned spiritual teacher and psychiatrist. He said of the ego:

To the prideful, narcissistic (‘sensitive’) ego, responsibility is ‘uncomfortable’, as are certain facts of reality that impinge on social image. Thus, to protect itself, the ego welcomes the concept of “labelling” to dispense with unwanted realities. The illusion is that by declaring a reality to be a ‘myth’ and just a ‘label’, it will disappear.”

Hawkins’ brilliant analysis of the ego provides us with a framework to understand the disturbing popularity of the Q movement.

As things in the world heat up and our situation becomes more and more uncomfortable, the ego seeks to deny reality by labelling it as myth (hence, “trust the plan”).

Many Qanon followers have also labeled the scamdemic as merely a “distraction”, saying that the “plan” is on the verge of coming to fruition. Other “distractions” include the roll-out of 5G, COVID passports and mandatory vaccines.

Lockdowns are yet another “distraction”. Despite zero evidence for this claim, Qanon followers will tell you lockdowns are necessary so that mass arrests can be made, and victims of abuse can be rescued.

Denial of unwanted realities is a characteristic of the ego that’s being exploited by the controlling force behind Q.

Instead of fighting against this global takeover and destruction of freedom, many Qanon followers are sitting back with their feet up and “trusting the plan”.

NON-ATTACHMENT: UNDOING FEAR

Much of what we do in life is an attempt to ease our suffering.

Whether it’s an alcohol addiction, playing video games or obsessively following Qanon. We do it because it makes us feel better.

There’s something deep inside us that is crying out in fear and we try to stifle it by engaging in all kinds of activities that bring only temporary relief. Spiritual teaching is typically revolved around undoing fear and ending suffering.

The great spiritual traditions teach us that suffering is caused by desire and attachment. Osho, the late Indian mystic, summed it up perfectly when he said:

“We continuously cling to that which we have, and we continuously desire that which we don’t have, and between these two we are crushed!”

The way out of suffering begins with undoing the ego. And an important step towards undoing the ego is practicing non-attachment.

Non-attachment is the practice of separating yourself from the worldly illusion and aligning yourself with the true nature of reality, with Divinity.

As Dr Hawkins said:

The passion for divinity results in a de-energizing interest in worldliness since the Self has no needs, wants or desires, even for the body itself.”

Separation from worldly affairs doesn’t mean you stop participating in the world nor does it mean you can’t enjoy the world – it simply means that you have learned to not let your happiness be dictated by external events.

Happiness, love, joy, fulfillment – it all comes from within. The minute you allow your circumstances to dictate your feelings, you have given in to the illusion and lost sight of the true reality, which is the Self, the soul, the atman. In Vedanta, they define this reality as ‘Satchidananda’, which means ‘existence–consciousness–bliss’.

Swami Sarvapriyananda sums up the essence of non-attachment:

“You can say, I am open to it all. Everything will come, I’ll resist nothing. Nor do I stick to anything. Nor do I pursue anything. I enjoy it all as it comes and goes.”

Yes, we’re going through a scary time. For those of us who are awake to the deception, it can feel like a nightmare. But giving in to fear is not the answer, nor is looking to Q to solve all your problems.

Instead, let us strive to practice non-attachment. Let us remember our true nature as pure consciousness. Let us be aware that happiness comes from within and is available to us at any time.

Let us open our hearts and resist nothing. Let us enjoy everything as it comes and goes.

This is how we take back our power from those who seek to keep us in fear. Let us be willing to say “no”.

Ryan Matters is a writer and free thinker from South Africa. After a life-changing period of illness, he began to question mainstream medicine, science and the true meaning of what it is to be alive. Some of his writings can be found at newbraveworld.org, you can also follow him on Twitter and Gab.

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