Marcel Westerlund

𝐆𝐨̈𝐛𝐞𝐤𝐥𝐢 𝐓𝐞𝐩𝐞 – 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐚, 𝐓𝐮𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐲 – 𝟗,𝟓𝟖𝟎 𝐁.𝐂.

The sun hangs low over the soft back of the Germuş mountains as we gather on the hill. The light is warm, carrying the color of sand, as if the sky itself were breathing through the stone. In front of me, the pillars we have toiled over for so many years rise up, until I no longer know where my life ends, and their shape begins. Now they stand upright in their circles, silent beings from another layer of the world – bright, freshly carved limestone against the darkening sky.

I walk slowly along the edge of the largest circle. The ground is hard‑packed by hundreds of feet; here we have carried blocks, tools, baskets of stone flakes, and pigment. Here we have sweated, argued, and laughed. Now only small traces remain: a dropped flint, a sliver of bone, the faint imprint of bare feet in the dust. Every step I take echoes the memory of those who did not make it all the way, who worked and then passed back into the earth.

The pillars are smooth beneath my fingertips. On some surfaces lie fresh strokes of red and yellow earth pigment – iron and sun mixed into signs that will be seen for a long time. Along one tall side, a fox slips in relief along the edge, so supple it seems ready to step out of the stone at any moment. Another pillar bears a bull, heavy and stubborn, its horns almost cutting into the shadows. Snakes coil over a third, birds spread their wings across a fourth. Every animal is a story; every story is a knot between our world and everything that surrounds and permeates us.

Behind me, I hear the movement of people. They come from every direction – from the valley where the water winds its way forward, from the bare hills where the wind carries the scent of thyme and dry soil, from camp sites we only visit in certain years. Small groups of men, women, children, and elders. They bring dried meat, seeds, fruits, hides, flints, and memories. We are many more than when I was young; I no longer know all their names, but I recognize the way they move toward the circle – the same mixture of tiredness and anticipation, of fear and longing.

We follow the herds of gazelles, wild sheep and goats. We follow the heavy aurochs across the slopes. But here, on this height, we are something more. Here we are not only those who follow; here we are those who call together. This place has grown out of our dreams and conversations, out of the nights when the fire burned low, and the stars forced us to look upward.

I remember the first night when the idea came as a clear image. The sky was so full of stars that the darkness almost vanished; the milky river above us carried stories I did not yet know how to speak aloud. I saw how the animals in the stone and the animals on the land belonged together, how our dead and our not‑yet‑born moved in the same circle. A place had to be raised where this could be bound together. Not just a place to sleep, not just a place to butcher, but a place to remember and foresee, to pray and to learn.

Now we stand here, and the place is real.

At my side walks one of the oldest women of our band. Her hands are thickened by years of baskets, hides, and children. She carries a small bowl of crushed color stones, red like blood, yellow like dried grass. We stop in front of the central pair of pillars. The two T‑shaped giants stand in the middle of the ring. They do not look like animals but like beings who are both human and more than human. Across their bodies run belts, hands, symbols that I myself have carved, yet whose full meaning reaches beyond what I can shape into words.

I place my hand against the “chest” of one pillar. The stone is still cool despite the low sun. I close my eyes, breathe, and let everything we have done pass through me – all the mis‑cut blocks, the failed lifts, all the times the rope almost snapped. All the moments that could have ended in shattered bones and silence. But here we are now, and the pillars stand.

Around us, the movement dies away. Children stop running and huddle closer to their mothers. The men who carried the heaviest blocks stand still, their arms made thick by the work. The young women who were brave enough to climb the highest on the scaffolds with wedges and ropes meet my gaze; in their eyes I see both pride and something even greater – the realization that they have taken part in something that will remain when their own bodies are gone.

I speak, but not loudly. The words are not made to impress, but to carry:

that this place is a heart,
that here the living and those who have left us meet,
that here we remember the animals we hunt and give thanks for their bodies,
that here we watch the sky, follow the turning of the year, read the signs in the stars and in the wind.

I speak of how we no longer only drive after the herds, but also gather here to plan, to tell, to teach. Here, the young will hear the stories of how the ice withdrew, how the waters rose, how the land changed its face. Here they will learn that nothing in the world stands still, but that something can be bound – if you have the courage to raise a stone.

When the sun just touches the horizon, we lift our hands. Some beat slowly on hollow drums of skin and wood; others let stones meet in rhythm. We move around the circle, slowly, in the same direction the sun has traveled across the sky this day. Our steps draw a temporary ring of dust above the permanent ring of stone.

At dusk, the animals come closer. I see the outline of an aurochs bull on a nearby rise, his silhouette cut out from the last strip of light. A herd of gazelles stands utterly still down in the valley; only their ears move. The cries of the birds weave themselves into our rhythm. The air is cooler now, but the ground beneath my feet is still warm.

For a moment, everything feels connected:

the hill I stand on,
stars I do not yet have names for,
children’s laughter fading as the drums grow deeper,
the smell of smoke and fresh pigment,
the old woman’s bowl in my hand.

It is as if the world itself is breathing through this place – in through the pillars, out through our lungs.

I know that one day all this will be covered by earth. Nothing here is made to remain visible forever. One day, when our time is over, others will fill these rooms with soil, not out of indifference but out of respect, as when a body is wrapped in cloth. Perhaps someone far in the future will open this hill again and wonder who we were. They will see the animals on the pillars, the traces of color, and the order of the stone circles. They will measure and draw and write – and perhaps still not quite understand.

But I do not stand here for them. I stand here for those who now hold my hands, who stand shoulder to shoulder in the circle. For the four daughters I do not yet have but feel the outline of within me. For the man who is often away with the herds but whose strength is carved into every block we raised. For all our dead, who now have a place to walk through on their way from darkness to the stars.

When night falls, and fires flare up around the circles, I lift my gaze one last time to the sky. The stars have shifted a little since I was a child, but their story is the same. We have written ourselves into it, with stone and blood and song.

Göbekli Tepe does not shine – it reflects. It receives the light of the heavens and returns it, filtered through human hands and hearts.

This is our inauguration. Not of a temple in the small sense of the word, but of a relationship: between us, the animals, the land, and the cosmos.

And that relationship, more than the stone itself, is what I hope will outlive us.

𝐈𝐥𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧:
𝐻𝑒𝑟𝑒, 𝑜𝑛 𝑎 𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑑‑𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡, 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑚𝑠 𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑘𝑦.
𝐼𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑖𝑟𝑐𝑙𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑝𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑠, ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑠, 𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑙𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑠 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑡𝑜𝑔𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 – 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑 𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑒𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑑, 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒, 𝑎 𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑟𝑠.

𝐓𝐞𝐱𝐭 & 𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧:

M. Westerlund

𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐧𝐨𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐬 𝐁𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐔𝐬 – 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐬 𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐦𝐞𝐭’𝐬 𝐈𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐓𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐲

𝐀𝐜𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐜 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭
Desmet, a professor of psychology and also a trained statistician, describes how he has repeatedly seen highly educated colleagues react with anger when he questions established methods – a phenomenon he interprets as “expert blindness,” where intelligent people become unable to see facts that threaten their ideological narratives. This experience drew him into mass psychology and the study of totalitarianism.
I discussed the phenomenon of mass formation as early as 2021 with Zoia Zakariasdotter in her excellent series “Modiga människor” (“Brave People”).

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐭𝐨𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦
The core of Desmet’s thinking is the concept of mass formation: a particular type of group formation in which 20–30 percent of the population come to believe fanatically in a simple narrative and its associated “collective ideal.” Once this mass has formed, charismatic or technocratic leaders can place themselves at its head and use it to seize control of the state, producing a totalitarian system that differs significantly from a classical dictatorship.

In a classical dictatorship, a small group rules through sheer fear; if the regime falls, the system collapses. In a totalitarian system, control is maintained through the mass itself: ordinary people function as a kind of “secret police,” voluntarily reporting dissenters – even their own children or parents – because loyalty to the collective ideal becomes stronger than personal bonds. Desmet argues that the fascist and communist regimes of the 20th century were genuinely totalitarian, and that we are now witnessing the rise of a new, technocratic totalitarianism led by bureaucrats and experts rather than overt dictators.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐦 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
Desmet maintains that mass formation arises under specific social conditions.

𝟏. 𝐖𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
In modern societies, large groups of people report feeling isolated, disconnected from nature, community and other human beings. This produces a deep sense of meaninglessness – many experience their work as “bullsh*t jobs” without real purpose.

𝟐. 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐞‑𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐱𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧
Loneliness and lack of meaning generate anxiety, frustration and aggression that cannot be linked to any concrete object – what Desmet calls “free‑floating anxiety.” Experiencing intense fear without knowing what one is afraid of is, in his view, one of the most painful psychological states a human being can endure.

𝟑. 𝐀 𝐧𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
When someone – often via mass media – presents a narrative that identifies a clear threat (a virus, an enemy people, a “dangerous leader”) and simultaneously offers a strategy to deal with that threat (lockdowns, war, harsh security measures), people flock to this narrative. They project their diffuse anxiety onto the designated object and experience two things: a sense of control and, above all, a new feeling of belonging through participation in a collective struggle.

𝟒. 𝐁𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬, 𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟‑𝐬𝐚𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐞, 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞
Under mass formation, individuals lose the capacity for critical distance; they may sacrifice health, economic security and even their children’s future in order to follow the narrative**, and they develop a **radical intolerance toward dissent. Historical examples he cites include parents proudly denouncing their children to the state – or, in our own time, people accepting that elderly relatives die alone “for the sake of solidarity.”

Desmet interpreted the COVID‑19 crisis as a clear example of this: a global narrative about the virus and lockdowns channelled pre‑existing social anxiety, and many people became willing to accept extreme interventions and to report those who broke the rules. When the pandemic narrative faded, he argues, the mass formation partly shifted to the war in Ukraine, with Putin as the new “object of anxiety.”

𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐪𝐮𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐚 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐲
A central theme in Desmet’s analysis is that modern science and media have drifted from critical inquiry toward priesthood. He distinguishes between historical “true scientists” – often people with a mystical or religious orientation, seeking the language of nature – and **today’s expert class, which primarily seeks to use science to control and optimise human beings as a kind of “biological machine."

According to Desmet:

- Mass media and PR systems have, since the 19th century, evolved into sophisticated propaganda machines that rely more on emotional manipulation and repetition than on rational argument.
- Liberal democracies are, in practice, particularly dependent on propaganda, because public opinion must be steered when the world’s complexity makes genuine rational oversight impossible.
- As a result, we no longer live in genuine democracies but in a kind of “velvet‑glove authoritarianism,” where the majority rules without real respect for the fundamental rights of minorities – something he believes became strikingly visible during the pandemic.

𝐃𝐞𝐬𝐦𝐞𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞: 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞
Desmet views contemporary security policy – for example, the West’s approach to Russia – as an expression of the same mass‑psychological pattern: a moralising good‑versus‑evil narrative replaces strategic dialogue, opponents are demonised, and all divergent analysis is branded as “propaganda” or treason. He warns that the combination of technocratic governance, mass formation and nuclear weapons makes the system suicidal: escalation can be pushed so far that nuclear war comes to be seen as acceptable or even unavoidable.

As a countermeasure he highlights only one truly effective strategy: truthful speech. Those who do not get swept up in mass formation must continue to speak openly – calmly, factually, without hatred – even if they do not “wake up” the mass. The aim is partly to prevent the system from reaching its final stage, where it becomes an “ethical imperative” to eliminate all dissenters, and partly to remind leaders who have become hypnotised by their own propaganda that other ways of thinking and acting still exist.

𝐃𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐩𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐥

The world doesn't need hate and polarisation. Countries do not need to be flattened and conquered. Humans do not need to be killed, tortured, or humiliated.

Everything is being weaponized. Someone enjoys manipulating us all into chaos, hate, and anger. Someone happily fuels conflicts in every corner of the world. Someone is pulling a string of hate.

1 % of all humans own more than the rest of the world. They are willing to rather destroy the planet than to share their boundless wealth with humility and compassion. They want to reduce the immense overpopulation by force. Something that can be achieved with absolute and necessary birth control.

If we don't control the overpopulation, we will increasingly become a swarm of locusts, consuming the whole planet. Then most of us will die. The current fight is about resources.

To take a life is easy, but no one can give it back. Instead of stretching out a fist, we all need to stretch out an open hand.

We stand at the border of the abyss. We don't need politicians telling us what to do; we need politicians to listen to what they must do. If they don't, the people must replace them.

If the eagle fights the bear and the dragon, the outcome will be total annihilation. And then it all starts again.