Self-appointed epidemiologist Eric Clapton has been doing a lot of his own "research" lately, and now he's claiming that COVID-19 vaccinations are the result of "mass hypnosis formation."
Clapton was interviewed by the Real Music Observer, a YouTube music channel with an anti-vax music bent, and said that his family and friends were worried by his anti-lockdown song with Van Morrison. Clapton said, "I thought, 'What's going on here?' I didn't get the memo. Whatever the memo was, it hadn't reached me. Then I started to realize there was really a memo: a guy, [Belgian professor] Mattias Desmet, talked about it. And it's great. The theory of mass hypnosis formation, he called it. And I could see it then. Once I kind of started to look for it, I saw it everywhere. And then I remembered seeing little things on YouTube, which were like subliminal advertising."
Tellingly, Clapton doesn't even understand this stuff enough to get the name right — he's referring to "mass formation psychosis," a theory that was spread on patient-zero-for-misinformation Joe Rogan's podcast late last year. It's essentially a pseudoscientific, faux-intellectual way of saying "mob mentality," and it's been widely discredited.
Steven Reicher, Professor of Social Psychology at Scotland's University of St Andrews, told Reuters, that the theory is "more metaphor than science, more ideology than fact" and that it "has been totally discredited by contemporary work on groups and crowds."
In the interview, Clapton also claimed that vaccine side-effects had reduced the mobility in his hands and hindered his ability to play guitar — something he's been struggling with since at least 2013 due to peripheral neuropathy. He said that he has since recovered from these symptoms and is back to normal.
Clapton was interviewed by the Real Music Observer, a YouTube music channel with an anti-vax music bent, and said that his family and friends were worried by his anti-lockdown song with Van Morrison. Clapton said, "I thought, 'What's going on here?' I didn't get the memo. Whatever the memo was, it hadn't reached me. Then I started to realize there was really a memo: a guy, [Belgian professor] Mattias Desmet, talked about it. And it's great. The theory of mass hypnosis formation, he called it. And I could see it then. Once I kind of started to look for it, I saw it everywhere. And then I remembered seeing little things on YouTube, which were like subliminal advertising."
Tellingly, Clapton doesn't even understand this stuff enough to get the name right — he's referring to "mass formation psychosis," a theory that was spread on patient-zero-for-misinformation Joe Rogan's podcast late last year. It's essentially a pseudoscientific, faux-intellectual way of saying "mob mentality," and it's been widely discredited.
Steven Reicher, Professor of Social Psychology at Scotland's University of St Andrews, told Reuters, that the theory is "more metaphor than science, more ideology than fact" and that it "has been totally discredited by contemporary work on groups and crowds."
In the interview, Clapton also claimed that vaccine side-effects had reduced the mobility in his hands and hindered his ability to play guitar — something he's been struggling with since at least 2013 due to peripheral neuropathy. He said that he has since recovered from these symptoms and is back to normal.
