THE GANZFELD EXPERIMENT

The following is the unedited version of an exposé currently featured in the 20^th revised edition of Malleus Maleficus'  [title withheld]. If you wish to report intrusiveness, prejudice or inaccuracies, please email MalleusMaleficus@aol.com  To make a formal complaint under IPSO rules please contact IPSO directly at ipso.co.uk .  

        “I believe the rot began with the creation of Twitter,” I continued. “Which  swarms with the sort of people who spit profusely, vociferously, aggressively and which has come to dominate all internet activity. A vast throbbing vortex of desperate socialites, academics, parliamentarians, perverts,

politicians, celebrities, groupies, pranksters, scammers, schemers, screamers and assorted trolls. Nor need one issue instructions, just let them off the leash. If Facebook is nothing more than a massive exercise in narcissism, tweeting is a disease due to the mind. And in consequence, it is the mind which is infected with a powerful malware worm that spreads through a previously unknown capability -  the so-called Zero-Point-Field. For your guidance, Mosley,  the Zero-Point or Ganzfeld is a kind of virtual, or shadow universe -  the aggregate of which is called 'the World' - an

alternative, virtual reality. But once targeted by social networking sites, the Ganzfeld is also subject to the most pervasive and comprehensive vulnerability known to man: Human vanity - a sort of self-absorbed online exhibitionism that has long reached the point of being self-sustaining. Take Edward Snowden, for example, a high-school drop-out with a patchy employment record who is now a wanted man in America. Trust me on this, far from being a patriot and deserving of the highest pardon, his postings indicate extreme narcissism and an irrepressible need for recognition. As indeed, the internet is the saviour of the introvert. With

a digital culture of extreme attention-seeking, the chief toxin polluting the world is the revolution in narcissistic communication. Networking sites are so intensely ego-receptive that they have come to be the shared collective for every act of insane, gormless and hysterical self-love, with a virtually infinite capacity for storage. And thus being mediums of the innermost neophiliac patterns of the major segments of the global population, Twitter and Facebook can act like irresistible cultural avalanches.”

            Michael Mosley knew better: “Rees, Hawking and Huw Price will just have to keep one step ahead.”

            “Although data is hard to come by,” I replied, “the code cannot be logically traced because it does not feature gigabytes of information, nor a poorly understood physical mechanism; but believe you me it is out there. It is the most sophisticated and refined piece of malware ever devised. And while the Illuminatus is whipping up a perfect storm, the Terminator gumshoes are plainly impervious to the seismic changes at present under way. As  part of the world’s first cyber-sublimation the Zero-Point-Field has already destabilised large parts of the Western world, and the analysts who are actively engaged with it are altogether ignorant of the sheer strength of a compulsion that is virtually indistinguishable from a virus being injected straight into the central nervous system of the human race. Secreted into every electromagnetic communication, it cannot be denied; you can hide no thought or information from it. But what is most disturbing  about it is this: it isn’t at all clear what its purpose may be. It doesn’t misappropriate passwords, nor generate bogus emails or phish for off-shore investment scams. Instead of using passwords to get what it wants, it is using something far more ominous: the human brain.  A faceless, subliminal and undetected infiltration of what Asimov called man’s last protective stronghold, his own mind. Only then is the System fully armed – and only then a  transformation occurs: you start to believe your own bullshit; you’re  moved by horoscopes and trust in Oliver Stone. An intrusive mentality which in its universal progression will go on to infect other  and more 

receptive minds; an enormous encyclopaedic cipher, in other words,  ceaselessly encrypted with every useless human thought in the whole wide world.” 

            Mosley understood perfectly: “It wants you dead,” he said, “but fucked will do!”

Indeed,  the most intriguing thing about the Ganzfeld Experiment, I knew, was  the continuing mystery surrounding its intentions. There was no doubt that at some level of awareness, mysteriously unclaimed, it retained all the information about everything in the world – every thought, objective, or intention. With one word from the Field’s creator, the System would be powerful enough to shut down the Internet, take over global satellite control, and hijack all electronic communication around the world, if not use a special application to manipulate a digital copy of the entire universe.

            Perhaps even more ominously, it had to date, failed to do any of these things. And therein lay what was possibly the most disturbing part of the whole Ganzfeld epidemic. It could not be verified. It was set in the last days of the declining West, amid the wreckage of an Empire whose occupants were waiting for something to happen…where nothing lacked, but a purpose and the destination.  Where no one was in charge. The System was. It was out there, poised, awaiting instructions…

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