In 2020, I noticed tiny, multi-colored strings coming out of my arms. Then the 'spike'-like structures made their debut. Eventually, I noticed nearly identical structures throughout my home and broader environment.
And the story gets weirder from there. WAY weirder. Weird enough that I and everyone around me started to question: IS THIS REALLY HAPPENING, OR IS IT DELUSION?
When doctors suggested it was psychosomatic, a quick internet search led me to the highly charged debates about Morgellons Disease, a highly controversial condition wherein microscopic, subcutaneous debris cause patients significant pain and discomfort. The controversy comes down to whether the patients' sensations are caused by either:
1. a "real," physical condition (whether the result of Lyme Disease, fungal infections, agro-bacteria, nano-tech, extraterrestrial pathogens, etc.--all of which have been suggested by well-renowned medical practitioners/researchers and lay people alike), or
2. the seemingly less "material" phenomena of "the mind" (e.g., psychological delusions, fueled by the so-called "mass hysteria" that festers in online patient forums)
Convinced that this was yet another product of the material/ideal and mind/body dualities, I turned to my anthropological training and tried to investigate each perspective on its own terms and in relation to what I was documenting in my daily experiences (both on my body and in the environment).
Rather than searching for the source of "delusion" in any individual "mind" (whether that of the usually-desperate patients like myself OR the doctors who are often maligned for dismissing those patients' concerns), I embraced an approach that (drawing on my mentors' work), I've been calling "culture AS delusion,' eventually asking: WHAT IF DELUSION ISN'T LOCATED 'INSIDE THE MIND' BUT RATHER, WITHIN 'CULTURE' (aka our collective practices) WRIT LARGE?
This website documents what I found: what *seems* like digital evidence (video/pictures/etc) of some kind of environmental pathogen/process/etc. (??) in/on the human body, other living organisms, inorganic and organic material, and across countless states (within the US) and countries.
I initially assumed this had a 'reasonable' explanation, but I slowly encountered evidence that seemed to discount each and every mundane explanation I could come up with (e,g., lint; a dangerous combo of anxious hyper-vigilance, internet hysteria, and confirmation bias; visual hallucinations/neurological conditions; individual/shared psychosis; emergent fungal infection fueled by environmental change and the increasing threats to the human microbiome; micro-plastics; etc.) as well as the consensus in many functional/integrative medical spaces (e.g., that the filaments are a kertin-based byproduct of the body's response to the lyme spirochete). I also systematically worked through all the 'logic' traps I could identify.
At this point, I have two working hypotheses:
1. The "delusions" occupying my consciousness have diverged so far from those that are recognized (and valorized) as "reality" that they are no longer a helpful way to describe or analyze our shared existence. (Read: I've "lost" my "mind".)
2. The organism/entity/phenomenon/whatever-it-is is ubiquitous (and greatly affecting hundreds of thousands of people) yet also largely understudied.
For everyone's sake, I really hope it's the former, but I'm increasingly suspicious that it's not.
I fthere is some kind of collective 'blindspot' at work (wherein something this WILD could go virtually unnoticed--at least within 'consensus reality'), then I suspect it has to do with a host of factors, including:
- physiological dynamics (e.g., neurological differences in perception, physiological and biochemical differences, etc.);
- ideological dynamics (the stubbornly influential illusions of the material/ideal and mind/body dualities, germ theory, and other distorted and distorting inheritances from classical mechanics; I think that the contentiousness surrounding this phenomenon—particularly how it seems caught up in the increasing social panic regarding what is or is not “real”—embodies (pun intended!) the social panic and instability that often arises in the wake of a scientific revolution. By demanding a more thorough renunciation of antiquated scientific paradigms, though, I imagine this phenomenon might also offer a phenomenal opportunity to make great strides in the transition into new epistemologies.
- political-economic dynamics (e.g., the co-occurring emergence of: ecological destruction and the associated emergence of novel pathogens, the effects of increasing toxicity on the human microbiome/innate immune system, the corporatization of healthcare systems, the "lag" in adapting medical education to these evolving environmental conditions, and the democratization of information systems--especially for scientific knowledge production-- that both provide dismissed patients with access to others who have similar symptoms and make practitioners understandably frustrated with patients starting visits with "I read on the internet...").
- environmental differences (perhaps especially in regards to exposure to non native EMF);
- socio-emotional dynamics (e.g., it seems so wildly unbelievable and absurd that most of us are afraid we'll look "crazy" if we even consider something that SEEMS 'unreal');
In some ways, perhaps this 'blindspot' is a good thing, as humans have a tendency to fear that which we don't understand. And in this case, I'm convinced that fearing whatever-this-is --and/or trying to contain/sanitize/kill it off-- is both unwarranted and hugely counterproductive.
IF there is something odd going on here, it's very likely NOT helpful to think about it as a pathogen (let alone a contagion). It's entirely possible that has been with us since the beginning of time and that those who have perceived it have been maligned and excluded as "crazy" (read: don't panic, you've almost certainly been around whatever-this-is and don't need to fear "catching" it). If that's the case, and if it truly is as ubiquitous as it seems to be, then the only danger here might be our tendency to fear that which we don't understand.
So I'm hoping you'll help me figure it out. ...
I'm humbly asking that you do your best to neither reject nor affirm my suspicions based solely on what sounds "realistic" or "reasonable." I trust that you will perceive this archive quite differently than I do. And I'm counting on that.
Triangulating those divergent perceptions together might, I hope, tell us something new about the positions from which we each perceive --and produce--this beautiful chaos we call "reality." (Or at least it might help me figure out why so many of us feel as though there are foreign bodies burrowing through our bodies. At this point, I'll happily take either one!)
