Wetiko: Healing the Mind-Virus That Plagues Our World

I don't concur with some conclusions and blanket statements author makes in book, but it was worth a speed reading.

For anyone currently facing or who has faced their Dark Night of the Soul, this book is a tremendous source for finding and reinforcing the light again. For anyone who has been given the label of having a schizophrenic, bipolar or other psychiatric disorder, this book will show that you are not mad, but rather you are enduring a spiritual battle in search of balanced stability – you are undergoing a shamanistic process to reconnect the unconscious to the conscious. As described within its pages, the darker forces will attack targets who are considered a future threat to them, and in doing so, they expose their Achilles heel – compassion, forgiveness and gratitude.Some parts of the book do overly dwell on doom & gloom and get a little dizzy with circular arguments, and in doing so, draw attention away from the solutions – pulling out the opposite of evil and our better nature from Wetiko and tapping into our creativity to improve the situation. I didn’t agree with all of the book’s points, such as evil is always our projection upon others. There are times when evil requires recognition in the dysfunctional or questionable behavior of others, and therefore, it is not our own projection but rather calls upon our own awareness. Overall, however, this is a well written book by Paul Levy and I’m glad to have read it – I left lots of post-it notes on the pages. Reading Paul’s book will help you regain and maintain your divine nature and remove the tarnish that interferes with your connection to the godhead.

I am listening to the audio version for the second time and found I really needed to just sit with so many things that were eye opening for me…much easier to do with the physical book.

Everyone should read this book, in my opinion. He is a clear writer who definitely know the subject matter. Was enlightening to have in print what is going on today.

If everyone read this book, and Paul’s other books, the world would be a much better place. People NEED to read this and share with everyone they know when they are done. The time is NOW

To say this book is profound is almost an understatement. It summarizes and clarifies so much that I’ve learned from reading Jung, and brings it up to date. To my mind, Wetiko is malignant narcissism, although Levy wisely steers away from the “N” word. I’ve lived so much of what he writes about. His writing has helped me see that there is a way out of this dark maze we as individuals and as the collective find ourselves in. This is my second time listening to the audio version, and I’m sure I’ll listen many more times. The chapters about dealing with the Shadow are especially helpful from my personal perspective. It’s obvious that so much thought and so much scholarship went into the writing of this book. Bravo! And thank you! 🙏🏼

Two years ago I was an admitted cable TV news junkie. Then, almost overnight, I distanced myself from all major news outlets. Why? Because I suddenly realized I was drowning in negative energy. I had become both a witness to and a slave feeding on the unpleasant emotions engendered in today’s world and, in a strange sort of loop, feeding that same negative energy back into my family, my friends, and society. Somehow, I woke up to the fact that I was being manipulated and was blind to it. Paul Levy would say I had become just one of the majority of human beings plagued by the mind-virus the American indigenous population has long termed Wetiko.The Kosmos website defines Wetiko as an Algonquin Indian word for a cannibalistic spirit that is driven by greed, excess, and selfish consumption. In this second book by Levy on the subject, he describes it from almost every conceivable angle in meticulous detail so that we are left with very little mystery about this viral force of which, deep down in our psyche, we are all aware but deny due to our blindness. Wetiko is a kind of clinging anti-information parasite that attacks us and then buries itself so deeply in our minds that it takes a great struggle to overcome. Our author terms it Malignant Egophrenia and compares it to many other concepts denoting the same universal sickness: David Schoen’s Addiction-Shadow-Complex; Jack Forbes’ sickness of exploitation; Denis de Rougmont’s devil; Iblis in the Islamic tradition; the counterfeit egoic mind in the Sikh holy books; the Kabbalists’ darkness; the shape-shifting e’epa in the beliefs of the Hawaiian Kahunas; R.D. Laing’s self-deception; Gurdjieff’s machine; Jung’s antimimos/Antichrist; the deceptive archon rulers of the Gnostics; Hank Wesselman’s egregoires; Tibetan tulpas; ghosts, demons, vampires, and the living dead in a number of traditions; ifituumbu of the Fipa people in Tanzania; Sri Aurobindo’s hostile forces; Colin Wilson’s Mind Parasites; Philip K. Dick’s black iron prison/deceitful corpse; William Burroughs’ Ugly Spirit invader; the dreamworld of illusion called The Matrix; William Blake’s empire of nothing/body of doubt that seems but is not; the lower-dimensional shadow projection of reality identified in quantum physics and expressed by Plato’s cave allegory; Eckhart Tolle’s pain-body; Michael Brown’s illegal squatters who have hijacked our soul; Castaneda’s foreign installed predator; René Gerard’s satanic principle; and more.Levy identifies some of Wetiko’s attributes as lying, fakery, mimicry, imitation, engendered blindness, conspiracy of denial, negative hallucination, discernment disabling, population dumbing down, black magic, distracting us outside of ourselves, spiritual materialism, contagious madness, cancer of the soul, scapegoating, heterophobia, greed, desire, ignorance, accusation, integration of evil, isolation, the energy of war, and even unhealthy and overzealous competition. He adds, “This inner darkness becomes easily manipulated and actively mobilized when we stop critically thinking for ourselves and become part of the herd.” This dark internal programming displays itself as a product of worldly powers which include governments and corporate institutions “that are able to influence perception and deceive the masses.” Most folks have no idea that behind visible events are invisible forces deep within our unconscious minds that “profoundly impoverish the quality of our awareness” and are robbing us of our creative energies and preventing us from remembering our true identity---our true Self.However, our author adds, as do almost all traditions, that the evil psychic parasite contains within itself---if we can discern it---an opportunity for us to overcome and defeat this malignant crippler. If we can see through its veil and its mesmerizing effect by looking at it from a different perspective, by making efforts to re-think our attitudes and actively participate via our re-cognition, by putting our attention into what is called “re-pentance” (what the Greeks called metanoia), there is hope. In terms of one powerful myth, it is represented by the Absolute sending himself a “letter” that restores his memory (Hymn of the Pearl). Or, as Philip Dick puts it, “If the final paradox of the maze is that the only way you can escape it is voluntarily go back into it, then maybe we are here voluntarily; we came back in….Anamnesis was the loss of amnesia. You remembered your origins, and they were from beyond the stars.”The final part of Levy’s book consists of a comparison between the Coronavirus Virus and the Wetiko Virus. It contains three chapters: “Covid-19 Is a Symbol of a Much Deeper Infection”, “The Coronavirus Contains its Own Vaccine”, and “Quantum Medicine for the Coronavirus.” It is there he stresses the danger of not seeing the bigger picture---of creating and maintaining what he calls a “metaperspective.” He advises us, “Once we become aware that the manifestation of the physical virus in our world is mirroring back to us a more fundamental underlying mental virus, we can self-reflectively put our attention on what within us is triggered by the external virus….Seen through the eyes of symbolic awareness, Covid-19 reveals to us just how fluid, impermanent, and malleable the underlying structures of our world are, as well as how unpredictable and dreamlike our ever-changing experience of the world really is….In addition, we can also realize that the entire universe is itself a continuous living revelation offering us everything we need in order to wake up, if only we have the eyes to see.”This review first appeared in New Dawn magazine, Issue No. 191.

Amazing followup to my favourite book "Dispelling Wetiko." Paul goes deeper into Wetiko, discussing how other traditions have been pointing at Wetiko, more about how it plays out in our world, in our minds and also covering Covid-19. Also Paul comes around full circle putting it altogether to remind us of how important Wetiko is to expressing our True, Creative nature and how we can reach our fullest potential.I loved how he addresses how we and many others shadow project, how we are collectively responsible to what plays out on the world stage. I felt he has such a unique and important view point on the Coronavirus Pandemic as many of us are focusing on the physical element of the virus instead of seeing what is around us. Also how projecting blame and pessimism are common traps we can fall into, he outlines philosophies and action steps which can best help us right now during Covid-19. I believe if more people were to read this book and understand it, the world would be a much better place.

This is undoubtedly a very good book. It conceptualises the thoughts going through my mind over the past few years, and echos spiritual teachings that I’ve encountered elsewhere.However, I did become slightly bored half way through. Perhaps I needed less convincing, so grew tired of the repetition. Also the book is entitled “Wetiko: Healing the Mind-Virus that Plagues Our World” and having accepted the presence of this collective psychosis, I was eager to know what to do about it. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the book fails to address this question. Other than recognising Wetiko in ourselves, others and society at large (which Levy acknowledges is not enough), he offers no other remedy. He talks about the importance of cultivating our creative force in the epilogue, but does not elaborate on how to go about this.Very few people will have a spontaneous expansion of consciousness from reading a few books and indulging in a little bit of self-enquiry, therefore I would have appreciated an exploration of the types of spiritual practices / methodologies that can be adopted to facilitate the radical transformation that is required, to heal this virus.Overall I would have preferred a more significant portion of this book to be devoted to the solution. I feel that too much attention has been given to the shadows (where attention goes, energy flows!) and not enough to enhancing the light.

Levy once again proves to be an oracle of modern times, condensing the multi faceted nature of evil (wetiko), into layman's terms so we all may glean much needed insights from it. A near perfect blend of narrative is explored, from the underpinnings of our personal battles right up to the collective manifestations symbolised via the covid crisis, Levy has left no stone unturned in this great, unmissable work.

More people should read this and take this on board.

Im still reading it