The Dark Side of Positive Thinking

Positive thinking fits nicely into the matrix of the post-modern, post-truth world we are now living in.

Post-modern existential philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger tore away the certainties and truths on which the modern world was built, and left us with a conception of reality that is fluid.

From Modern to Post-Modern

Previously, modern humans, using reason as their guiding light, uncovered the laws that nature had been concealing that reality was fixed and determinant.

The existentialists overturned that view, telling us that reality wasn’t terra firma, but rather something more akin to quicksand. In short, we all live in different realities that are dynamic and flexible.

If that is so, then we are free to create our own realities.

Reality as a Buzzing Chaos

Nietzsche saw reality as a buzzing chaos. He surmised that if there was a final truth or truths, they were beyond human understanding.

The only way to manage this chaos is to impose our own version of reality on it.

After a while, if we don’t like the reality we created, we can change it. We spend most of our lives justifying and trying to convince others of our version of reality. This is Nietzsche’s concept of the “Will To Power”.

Positive Thinking and Post-Modernism

That pretty much defines our post-truth world today, and is the perfect entry way for positive thinking which holds that reality is fungible and not fixed. Thus, we can create our reality just by using our minds and will.

This approach falls under the general name of “New Thought”. We see it expressed in Rhonda Byrne’s film and book, The Secret, and in Earnest Holmes’ Science of Mind, just to site a couple of examples.

They believe that people using certain techniques and visualizations, can impose their hopes and dreams onto a malleable reality for their own prosperity and fulfillment.

The Darker Side of Positive Thinking

But there is a darker side to this. Richard Spencer, head of the National Policy Institute, made up primarily of white nationalists that Spencer has dubbed the “alternative right” or the “alt-right” to distinguish it from its more unsophisticated predecessors, embraces this notion that the mind can impose itself on reality and mold it to his desires.

An example of this was Donald Trump’s presidential victory in 2016. Spencer took credit for it, calling it a victory of the will.

Gary Lachman in his book, Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump, quotes Spencer as saying,

“We willed Donald Trump into office, we made this dream a reality.”

This is the same worldview that New Thought embraces—that our minds can make our dreams come true. We can “will” them into existence.

What Spencer did was take the New Thought method and use it for his own ends.

Trump and Positive Thinking

Lachman points out that Trump himself was a devotee of positive thinking. He credits the popular book, The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale as formative in the development Trump’s own worldview.

From Peale, Trump learned that the mind can overcome any obstacle.

The term the alt-right used for this positive thinking was “chaos magick” and Trump was a natural chaos magician.

As the modern worldview was collapsing, leading up to the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton was seen as the establishment candidate, projecting a “business as usual” persona.

Unfortunately, business as usual was not working for a lot of people who thought the system was rigged against them. They were ready for something new and different.

Trump filled that role, wanting to tear down political and social norms. He led people to ask, “Why not give this guy  a chance? “How much worse could it get?

Trump won the election and his four years in office supported the notion that he was the chaos president as he upended norms and values, trying to get people to believe his version of reality, despite how unsupported it was.

Lachman calls Trump our first post-modern president.

Positive Thinking and the “Big Lie”

Understanding this, gives us insight into Trump’s stance on the Big Lie. He is using his “power of positive thinking” to convince himself and others that he won the 2020 election.

Trump is trying to impose his will on reality and get others to accept his version. He believes if his mind and belief are strong enough, he can will it to be so.

This is the dark side of positive thinking.

Reality as Buzzing Chaos is Only Part of the Story

As I said, earlier, Nietzsche viewed reality as a buzzing chaos, but that is only part of the story.

Nietzsche is correct if he means the human mind will never penetrate through that chaos to find anything ultimate. But he is wrong that we can’t “experience” this deeper reality.

As mentioned in a previous article, this is the fundamental tenet of Taoism. The Tao is beyond all of our concepts and ideas, but we can connect with it inwardly in deeper and deeper ways.

So there is an ultimate reality that keeps us grounded if we can reach it.

“If the Doors of Perception were Cleansed…”

William Blake says in the Marriage of Heaven and Hell,

“If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.”

The problem with post-truthers is they have not as yet cleansed their doors of perception to experience that deeper reality, so instead view it from the narrow chinks of their cavern.

Now, the big question about Trump is does he actually understand that he lost the election? It seems hard to believe that with all the lost court cases and his tops aides, including his own family, telling him over and over he lost, that he doesn’t realize this.

Is Trump Detached From Reality?

But some think his former Attorney General, Bill Barr, gave him an out, when he described Trump as “detached from reality.”

So, maybe he doesn’t know he lost the election.

If that’s so, if Trump is that divorced from reality, then Trump would meet the definition for insanity.  The Oxford Dictionary defines insanity as,

“a mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior.”

If Trump still doesn’t realize he lost the election, maybe rather than sending him to a jail cell, he needs to be confined to a padded room, so he can no longer harm himself or others.

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To learn more: Click this link: The Magical Universe. 

Photo by Jordon Conner on Unsplash