I have been exploring Aldous Huxley's Brave New World again recently, comparing what Huxley wrote in 1932 to our modern world and the results are fascinating. One of the most curious elements in Huxley's treatment is the use of psycho-pharmaceuticals to enhance suggestibility, suppress negative emotions and emotional attachment and replace them with a euphoric sense of well-being. The drug in Brave New World is called 'soma'.

Huxley described his fictional drug soma during his presentation at Berkeley in 1962:

"I invented a hypothetical drug called SOMA, which of course could not exist as it stood there because it was simultaneously a stimulant, a narcotic, and a hallucinogen, which seems unlikely in one substance. But the point is, if you applied several different substances you could get almost all these results even now...

"Modern science has of course better ways of extracting the active principals of these drugs and of course has discovered numerous ways of synthesizing new substances of extreme power...

"...And here I think one has an enormous area in which the ultimate revolution could function very well indeed, an area in which a great deal of control could be (achieved) not through terror, but by making life seem much more enjoyable than it normally does. Enjoyable to the point, where as I said before, Human beings come to love a state of things by which any reasonable and decent human standard they ought not to love and this I think is perfectly possible."

This would be possible because, as Huxley intimates elsewhere, the psycho-pharmaceuticals would be most useful for those people who were resistant to conditioning, or as he uses the term virtually interchangeably, being inducted into the hypnotic state.

"You’ll find for example that the experienced hypnotist will tell one that the number of people, the percentage of people who can be hypnotized with the utmost facility (snaps his fingers), just like that, is about 20%, and about a corresponding number at the other end of the scale are very, very difficult or almost impossible to hypnotize. But in between lies a large mass of people who can with more or less difficulty be hypnotized, that they can gradually be - if you work hard enough at it - be got into the hypnotic state..."

Huxley then provides a number of experiential arguments and proofs that ca. 20% of the population is extremely susceptible to being conditioned, 20% extremely resistant and a sliding scale of suggestibility for the rest. He then concludes:

"Well, as I say, on the basis of this, I think we see quite clearly that the human populations can be categorized according to their suggestibility fairly clearly. I suspect very strongly that this twenty percent is the same in all these cases, and I suspect also that it would not be at all difficult to recognize in very early childhood those who are extremely suggestible and who are those extremely unsuggestible and who are those who occupy the intermediate space."

As has been in the news repeatedly in recent years, the use of prescription medications is escalating dramatically, especially psychotropic medications to treat mental illnesses. The website psychiatricdrugs.net estimate ca. 25% of adults "suffer from a diagnosable mental illness." Thereto about "20 percent of young Americans ages 13 to 18 and 13 percent of those ages 8 to 15 experience severe mental disorders in a given year."

The solution? Psychotropic medication, of course! It is impossible to do justice to the extent of the mental health crisis in a paragraph or two, but I just wanted to point it out as a backdrop to the curious correlation mentioned in the title.

While digesting Huxley's arguments, I remembered a report that made the curious correlation between Huxley's predictions and our modern day crystallize. According to a 2013 research study by the Mayo Clinic:

"Antibiotics, antidepressants and painkiller opioids are the most commonly prescribed... _Twenty percent - 20% - of (U.S.) patients are on five or more prescription medications."

And Huxley again as a reminder...

"...SOMA... was simultaneously a stimulant, a narcotic, and a hallucinogen, which seems unlikely in one substance. But the point is, if you applied several different substances you could get almost all these results even now..."

"...the percentage of people who can be hypnotized with the utmost facility...is about 20% ... a corresponding number at the other end of the scale are very, very difficult... to hypnotize."

Correlation is not causation of course, but I found the 20% correlation between prescription medication and Huxley's exposition on suggestibility thought-provoking. I am not stating that the population is being intentionally subdued by the targeted application of psychotropic medication. But given the current escalation of control tactics the population is being subjected to (hypnotic propaganda, technological conditioning, violent coercion etc.) induced docility via psychotropic pharmaceuticals would be an eminently reasonable technique from a Huxleyan perspective.

Huxley extrapolated on the dangers of a population in which 20% of the people are highly suggestible as well. In reading his comments, I was struck by the apparent relevance to the current postmodern hyper-relativist movement misnomered as the Social "Justice" Movement. The Cultural Marxist perspective being advanced by the Social Justice Movement depends almost entirely on emotional decision making and the suggestibility of its adherents.

"But, once given the fact that there are these 20% of highly suggestible people, it becomes quite clear that this is a matter of enormous political importance, for example, any demagogue who is able to get hold of a large number of these 20% of suggestible people and to organize them is really in a position to overthrow any government in any country.
...
"But the fact remains that this differential of suggestibility, this susceptibility to hypnosis, I do think is something which has to be considered very carefully in relation to any kind of thought about democratic government. If there are 20% of the people who really can be suggested into believing almost anything, then we have to take extremely careful steps into prevent the rise of demagogues who will drive them on into extreme positions then organize them into very, very dangerous armies, private armies which may overthrow the government."

It is difficult not to see the Social Justice Movement establishing itself as a private force driven by demagogues. The demagogues convince people they are victims whose struggle to oppose their own victimhood is worthy of glorification. Their struggle means they should be granted special privileges. It is the perverse martyrdom of self-flagellating fantasists who wish to be rewarded for their self-abuse at the expense of others. This martyrdom is then to be leveraged to enact political change that actually enslaves not just those advocating for the change, but all people, everywhere. In my opinion, the Social Justice cohort represents a particularly suggestible subpopulation that has literally learned to love its servitude.

This consideration led me to ponder the demographic being treated with that cocktail of psychotropic medications. Would it be more likely to consist of those easily hypnotized, or those more resistant to hypnosis? I suspect those more resistant, but I can't think of a means of determining that. It would certainly make sense to "treat" those most resistant to the encroaching tyranny while inducting those most suggestible to movement with whose its interests align.

Man however is not meant to be a slave, nor was he made to live in the absence of truth. The more the central controllers seek to control the populace, the greater the blowback will be. There are already a hundred million Savages running through the carefully crafted cages of invisible control, and they, like John the Savage from Brave New World are throwing the pills of enslavement out the window:

"But do you like being slaves?" the Savage was saying as they entered the Hospital. His face was flushed, his eyes bright with ardour and indignation. “Do you like being babies? Yes, babies. Mewling and puking,"..."Yes, puking!"... "Don’t you want to be free and men? Don’t you even understand what manhood and freedom are?” Rage was making him fluent; the words came easily, in a rush. "Don’t you?" he repeated, but got no answer to his question. "Very well then," he went on grimly. "I’ll teach you; I’ll make you be free whether you want to or not." And pushing open a window that looked on to the inner court of the Hospital, he began to throw the little pillboxes of soma tablets in handfuls out into the area.