You may be familiar with the BBC’s Only Connect1 quiz show in which teams compete to find connections between seemingly unrelated clues.
Deliciously devious and maddeningly abstract is a fair description. And knowledge does indeed only get you so far. Although for some of the questions, knowledge is vitally important.
I prefer the sort of questions that almost anyone could answer, no matter how much they know. For example:
What connects the following?
Po Ire Ice Fin
In the show, the clues are revealed one at a time, and five points are awarded for a correct answer at the first clue (i.e. just Po in this case); three points at the second; two at the third; and one after all four have been disclosed.
If you quickly spotted that “land” can be placed after each clue to give a country — Poland, Ireland, Iceland, Finland — you might well be an OnlyConnect natural. Though some of the connecting tasks are rather harder and more involved than the above.2
Anyhow, it is the making of connections — of sorts — that is the subject of this fairly recent article by entrepreneur and investor Josh Stylman which I thought well worth highlighting:
The remainder of this post features an abridged version with some thoughts and comments.
Within months, we watched [what Haines discussed] in real time — unified messaging across all platforms, suppression of dissent, and coordinated narrative control that fooled much of the world.
I am reminded of the propaganda coming out of China in early 2020:
And that it is not only in Christ that God makes “foolish the wisdom of the world”.
But not everyone stayed fooled forever. Some saw through it immediately, questioning every aspect from day one. Others thought it was just incompetent government trying to protect us. Many initially accepted the precautionary principle—better safe than sorry. But as each policy failure pointed in the same direction—toward more control and less human agency—the pattern became impossible to ignore. Anyone not completely subsumed by the system eventually had to confront its true purpose: not protecting health or safety, but expanding control.
It has often occurred to me that seeing through the deception of the past few years is a form of pattern recognition.
Only connect.
The skills required for spotting the media manipulation and the lies of the authorities are somewhat different from the relatively cerebral puzzles featured on the TV quiz show. But there are definitely things in common: not least a willingness to think, an awareness of what actually goes on in the world, and a fairly good memory of recent events. And perhaps also an inclination to pay attention when you have a hunch as to a possible connection.
I sometimes find, when I am watching OnlyConnect, that I have at least an inkling as to the connection. And that, at other times, I have nowhere to start, but that I make progress when someone else — either a contestant or someone watching with me — reveals what they are thinking.
I wonder how many people had a hunch that something was wrong early during the covid era, but suppressed it, didn’t pursue it, or just kept quiet about it. For my own part, I wish I had spoken up sooner and louder. And that I had heard more of what other people were thinking. Which of course was difficult when workplaces and pubs and restaurants and cafes — and churches — were closed, and people were generally discouraged from meeting together…
An unmistakeable pattern of deception
The making of connections, and the recognition of patterns, can be hugely revealing. And, as Stylman points out, it should prompt further thought:
Once you recognize this pattern of deception, two questions should immediately arise whenever major stories dominate headlines: “What are they lying about?” and “What are they distracting us from?”... The pattern becomes unmistakable once you see it — manufactured crises driving pre-planned “solutions” that always expand institutional control.
The strategy of manufactured crises driving pre-planned “solutions” is nothing new of course. I wrote about “problem, reaction, solution” here in this post last summer, which features some historical examples:
A recurrent theme of this sort of thing is: once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Stylman continues:
Mainstream media operates on twin deceptions: misdirection and manipulation. The same anchors who sold us WMDs in Iraq, promoted “Russia collusion,” and insisted Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation” still occupy prime time slots. Just as we see with RFK, Jr.’s HHS nomination, the pattern is consistent: coordinated attacks replace substantive debate, identical talking points appear across networks, and legitimate questions are dismissed through character assassination rather than evidence. Being consistently wrong isn’t a bug — it’s a feature. Their role isn’t to inform but to manufacture consent.
I find it amazing that people continue to trust the mainstream media, and particularly the BBC. And not just for the reasons above. I first became suspicious when it became clear that Jimmy Savile’s nefariousactivities were not being investigated, even though it was widely known what sort of things he was up to.3 More recently, it has seemed increasingly obvious to me that the BBC has been instrumental in pushing both the climate and covid narratives.
As to the covid era, try this article regarding an edition of BBC Radio 4’s supposedly trustworthy More or Less:
And e.g. the statement below from the 344-page covid inquiry submission4 from UKCVFamily — a group working to help those injured and bereaved by the so-called covid vaccines. It concerns Gareth Eve, whose wife Lisa Shaw was a presenter for BBC Radio Newcastle, and who, according to the coroner, “died due to complications from the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine”:
It is plain for all to see, not least from its transgender coverage, that the BBC is working to advance certain agendas:
I was interested to see this result when I typed “grooming gangs” into the search field of the BBC website:
Liar: The Fake Grooming Scandal is a programme describing how “twenty-two-year-old Ellie Williams was jailed for lying about being trafficked and raped by a vicious Asian grooming gang”.
And there are apparently no programmes featuring underage girls telling the truth about such crimes.5
I won’t be holding my breath for a BBC interview with the likes of Raja Miah:
The same organisation that protected Jimmy Savile… And that heads up the Trusted News Initiative:
“Beyond Fake News”?
Hmm.
A consistent template
Stylman’s next point is particularly striking, I think:
The template is consistent: Saturate media with emotional spectacles while advancing institutional agendas with minimal scrutiny. Like learning to spot a fake smile or hearing a false note in music, you develop an instinct for the timing…
Saturate media with emotional spectacles while advancing institutional agendas with minimal scrutiny
I think I would find it hard to put together a better short description than that.
Stylman illustrates his point with multiple examples, including these:
The list in the article is rather longer, and written from an American perspective, but it is hardly exhaustive.
As to possible recent examples from a UK perspective, I wonder to what extent it was a coincidence that Elon Musk raised the profile of the “grooming gangs” scandal — which, dreadful though it is, is hardly new news — just before the UK covid inquiry moved to its Module 4 on “Vaccines and therapeutics”?
Or that Chris Whitty and Jonathan Van-Tam and Jenny Harries were scheduled to appear at the inquiry on the same day as Donald Trump’s inauguration?
Or that this story — however real it is — featuring two promiscuous white women, has gained such prominence only days after calls for a national inquiry into “grooming gangs”?
Proving that certain storylines are deliberately prioritised and amplified by the media for a given purpose is of course easier said than done. But to my mind it is not a question of whether this sort of thing happens but to what extent.
As I noted here, the manipulation of the media by corporate interests has been going on for a long time:
And I increasingly wonder to what extent we are being fed stories that are intended not only to distract us but to divide us. And to frighten us.
Only connect.
Most revealing is what they don’t cover
I have noticed over the years that what is not said is often more revealing than what is said. And in the context of the media, Stylman points out:
Most revealing is what they don’t cover. Notice how quickly stories disappear when they threaten institutional interests. Remember the Epstein client list? The Maui land grab? The mounting vaccine injuries? The silence speaks volumes.
Consider the recent whistleblower testimonies revealing suppressed safety concerns at Boeing, a company long entangled with regulatory agencies and government contracts. Two whistleblowers—both former employees who raised alarms about safety issues—died under suspicious circumstances. Coverage of their deaths disappeared almost overnight, despite the profound implications for public safety and corporate accountability. This pattern repeats in countless cases where accountability would disrupt entrenched power structures, leaving crucial questions unanswered and narratives tightly controlled.
These decisions aren’t accidental — they result from media ownership, advertiser influence, and government pressure, ensuring the narrative remains tightly controlled.
The BBC reported the death of Boeing whistleblower John Barnett, who died aged 62 in March 2024:
But when I searched the corporation’s website I found nothing about Joshua Dean,6 another whistleblower, who died aged 45 only weeks later:
Back to Stylman’s article…
The susceptibility of the professional-managerial class
I found the next section particularly striking (emphasis added):
But perhaps most striking isn’t the media’s deception itself, but how thoroughly it shapes its consumers’ reality. Watch how confidently they repeat phrases clearly engineered in think tanks. Listen as they parrot talking points with religious conviction: “January 6th was worse than 9/11,” “Trust The Science™,” “Democracy is on the ballot” and, perhaps the most consequential lie in modern history, “Safe and Effective.”
If you haven’t seen such montages before, I recommend watching at least the first minute or so of the footage at those two links.
The professional-managerial class proves especially susceptible to this programming. Their expertise becomes a prison of status—the more they’ve invested in institutional approval, the more fervently they defend institutional narratives. Watch how quickly a doctor who questions vaccine safety loses his license, how swiftly a professor questioning gender ideology faces review, how rapidly a journalist stepping out of line gets blacklisted.
The system ensures compliance through economic capture: your mortgage becomes your leash, your professional status your prison guard. The same lawyers who prides themselves on critical thinking will aggressively shut down any questioning of official narratives. The professor who teaches “questioning power structures” becomes apoplectic when students question pharmaceutical companies.
If I were were looking for a succinct phrase to describe the congregation at the church I attend, I could do a lot worse than “the professional-managerial class”. And I can certainly identify with what Stylman says in that last paragraph about the shutting down of the questioning of official narratives. Especially when church leaders have portrayed those narratives as though they were unquestionable truth.
I find the reluctance of people to question pharmaceutical companies particularly curious. Especially given that even Wikipedia — which is hardly objective these days, and attempted to defame and delegitimise anybody raising concerns against the WHO narrative on covid — has this List of largest pharmaceutical settlements:
And yet so many of the professional-managerial class appear to think we can trust such corporations with novel technology injections developed in 10 months rather than 10 years. Maybe they just assume the BBC is correct in reporting that “no corners [were] cut in designing, testing and manufacturing.”8
And perhaps they think that in press releases such as this one, pharmaceutical companies with a track record of violating the False Claims Act always tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth:
A self-reinforcing system of programming
Stylman goes on to explain how the programming works:
The circular validation makes the programming nearly impenetrable:
Media cites “experts”
Experts cite peer-reviewed studies
Studies are funded by industry
Industry shapes media coverage
“Fact-checkers” cite media consensus
Academia enforces approved conclusions
This self-reinforcing system forms a perfect closed loop:
Each component validates the others while excluding outside information. Try finding the entry point for actual truth in this closed system. The professional class’s pride in their critical thinking becomes darkly ironic — they’ve simply outsourced their opinions to “authoritative sources.”
Most disturbing is how willingly they’ve surrendered their sovereignty. Watch them defer:
“I follow the science” (translation: I wait for approved conclusions)
“According to experts” (translation: I don’t think for myself)
“Fact-checkers say” (translation: I let others determine truth)
“The consensus is” (translation: I align with power)
So many bells are ringing from that last part…
The whole approach seems to me a long way from that of Jesus.
I am reminded of this C. S. Lewis quote from That Hideous Strength:
Why you fool, it’s the educated reader who CAN be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others.
When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that they’re all propaganda and skips the leading articles. He buys his paper for the football results and the little paragraphs about girls falling out of windows and corpses found in Mayfair flats. He is our problem. We have to recondition him.
But the educated public, the people who read the high-brow weeklies, don’t need reconditioning. They’re all right already. They’ll believe anything.”
…often I found… the least educated person in the street had a much clearer and [a] sceptical view of these things. And I do think that is perhaps connected. It is not that the ordinary person is unintelligent, but [that] the ordinary person who has not been through tertiary education is much less brainwashed. And I think that is the truth. I think [the] people in our society who are most in danger are those who have been to university… [and] in the last several decades the [number] of those has been inflated enormously. They have been exposed to excessive incessant propagandising by false and deceitful ideology, and I think that is a very big factor.
Could it be that many highly educated people are so brainwashed that they are unwilling even to take seriously the notion that they could have been brainwashed?
I could very much identify with this during 2020/2021:
Stylman adds:
Their empathy becomes a weapon used against them. Question lockdowns? You’re killing grandma. Doubt transition surgery for minors? You’re causing suicides. Resist equity initiatives? You’re perpetuating oppression. The programming works by making resistance feel like cruelty.
I am reminded that one of the things I found hard during the covid era — particularly around the time of the “dark day” that I described in this post…
…was that I stood week after week in church with no opportunity to explain why I was, as I always had done,9 attending services with my face uncovered. The church leadership certainly showed no appetite for pointing out that some people in the congregation had serious reservations about the veracity of what we were being told, let alone that their objections and behaviour were principled and carefully considered. And so I had no idea — and still have no idea — what most of the others in the congregation were thinking. Maybe there were some who thought — and still think — that what I did was highly irresponsible, and that I simply do not care about grannies.
A genuine awakening that defies traditional political boundaries
Towards the end of his piece, Stylman sounds an optimistic note:
Something remarkable is happening beneath the surface noise: a genuine awakening that defies traditional political boundaries. You see it in the subtle exchanges between colleagues when official narratives strain credibility. In the growing silence at dinner parties as propaganda talking points fall flat. In the knowing looks between strangers when public health theatre reaches new heights of absurdity.
I was encouraged to read that paragraph. But I have long sensed that the US is somewhat ahead on the covid narrative front relative to the UK. And in the circles in which I move — where many are among the professional-managerial class — things are somewhat behind what Stylman describes.
He continues (emphasis added):
This isn’t a movement in the traditional sense — it can’t be, since traditional movement structures are vulnerable to infiltration, subversion, and capture. Instead, it’s more like a spontaneous emergence of pattern recognition. A distributed awakening without central leadership or formal organization. Those who see through the patterns recognize the mass formation for what it is, while its subjects project their own programming onto others, dismissing pattern recognition as “conspiracy theories,” “anti-science,” or other reflexive labels designed to prevent genuine examination.
That last sentence certainly fits well with my experience during the last few years.
The hardest truth isn’t recognizing the programming — it’s confronting what it means for human consciousness and society itself. We’re watching real-time evidence that most human minds can be captured and redirected through sophisticated psychological operations. Their thoughts aren’t their own, yet they’d die defending what they’ve been programmed to believe.
There are surely massive implications here for churches concerned with the gospel and evangelism. But my own church leaders — who would claim that the gospel and evangelism are really important to them — seem determined to look the other way. When I point them to carefully considered testimonies such as the one featured in this post…
…and when I point out that I hear of other such accounts, they don’t reply and say e.g. “Wow! That’s wonderful. Tell me about some of the others.” They show little or no interest.
The hijacking of core human drives
Stylman goes on to discuss how the psychological programming works:
This isn’t just media criticism anymore — it’s an existential question about human consciousness and free will. What does it mean when a species’ capacity for independent thought can be so thoroughly hijacked? When natural empathy and moral instincts become weapons of control? When education and expertise actually decrease resistance to programming?
I am reminded of the weaponisation of behavioural psychology described in theseposts:
The programming works because it hijacks core human drives:
The need for social acceptance (e.g., masking as a visible symbol of conformity)
The desire to be seen as good/moral (e.g., adopting performative stances on social issues without deeper understanding)
The instinct to trust authority (e.g., faith in public health officials despite repeated policy reversals)
The fear of ostracism (e.g., avoiding dissent to maintain social harmony)
The comfort of conformity (e.g., parroting narratives to avoid cognitive dissonance)
The addiction to status (e.g., signaling compliance to maintain professional or social standing)
I think if I had seen the above five years ago, and been warned about what was coming, I would have thought that Christians might be relatively immune. I think I might have said something along the lines of…
I have lived as part of a relative small minority — i.e. a churchgoing, Bible-believing Christian — for all my adult life. And so:
I don’t necessarily expect my views to be socially acceptable
I don’t really want to be seen as good/moral, not least because I value the truth and I know the state of my own heart
I am somewhat disinclined to trust authority given what the Bible says about [i] the human condition,10 and [ii] Satan’s servants masquerading as servants of righteousness11
I expect to be ostracised for my beliefs to some degree
While I see the appeal of the comfort of conformity, I value truth more (and I mean truth in its broadest sense here)
I don’t think I have much of an issue with addiction to status, perhaps in part because I have never particularly craved status in the first place
And I think I would have thought that plenty of others at the church I attend — perhaps even the majority — would have felt the same way.
But five years ago I had no idea of what a combination of media manipulation and behavioural psychology could do.
The core challenge of our time
Stylman concludes:
Each natural human trait becomes a vulnerability to be exploited. The most educated become the most programmable because their status addiction runs deepest. Their “critical thinking” becomes a script running on corrupted hardware.
That analysis certainly fits my observations. I have discovered to my dismay that the behaviour of many people who would, I think, if pressed, say that they were critical thinkers, does not match that description.
This is the core challenge of our time: Can human consciousness evolve faster than the systems designed to hijack it? Can pattern recognition and awareness spread faster than manufactured consensus? Can enough people learn to read between the lies before the programming becomes complete?
The stakes could not be higher. This isn’t just about politics or media literacy — it’s about the future of human consciousness itself. Whether our species maintains the capacity for independent thought may depend on those who can still access it helping others break free from the spell.
The matrix of control deepens daily, but so does the awakening. The question is: Which spreads faster — the programming or the awareness of it? Our future as a species may depend on the answer.
I wonder how churches will rise to this challenge, even if they can see that there is a challenge to which to rise. I sense that churches whose leadership and congregation are composed largely of the professional-managerial class will be among the last to see the need to engage, and perhaps the most reluctant to do so. Though I would be delighted to be proved wrong on that.
For many and various reasons, I think we urgently need more of some of the things that the Bible unequivocally advocates: truth, reconciliation, repentance. And if we go down that road, who knows what God might ultimately bring about as a result?
'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord.'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts...' (Isaiah 55:8-9)
If you like a challenge, try solving this Only Connect wall, identifying the four groups of four connected clues (solution in the next Updates post if I remember…):
If you’re wondering about Moderna, which doesn’t make it onto Wikipedia’s pharmaceutical hall of shame, look up how many products the company had actually brought to market prior to 2020
