Implosion: Delusion, denial, and the prospect of collapse

Jerry Kroth

Jul 2014 · Genotype

About this ebook

Implosion: denial, delusion, and the prospect of collapse is a penetrating look at contemporary collective delusions slithering across the American landscape.  A delusion is a false idea about the world, a kind of intellectual “trance.” When an individual suffers one, the diagnosis of mental illness is not far behind. When a nation labors under them, we have a state of collective mental instability.  This odyssey explores five gargantuan delusions infecting the American psyche: our understanding of our democratic political system, the Iraq war, the perception of ourselves as an empire, the musical genre of hip-hop, and our extremely precarious financial condition.  In the final chapter, “Slip-slidin to dystopia,” Dr. Kroth reviews the seven major signs of societal collapse. These factors are combined to form “the American Dystopia Index.” When one looks at this metric, the transformation of the American dream to an American nightmare seems all but assured should we not awaken from our myriad trance states in time.

Reviews:

Jerry Kroth’s book, Implosion, is so exciting that I had to stop reading it for a few minutes just to calm down. Kroth does for his readers just what he says the truth will do for us. He presents an utterly compelling case for seven deadly symptoms which combined will bring America down and the world with it. However, he does it so well and documents his work so meticulously, that the excitement of learning the truth renders reading implosion a thrilling experience.

 

As Yeats said in his prescient poem, “the Second Coming “The centre cannot hold.” Kroth promises us a second coming of hope and possibility. He exposes our march towards destruction and also a path for reversing that. Implosion strips away our illusions and denials giving us the truth, a chance to reverse our deadly course, and also a reason to hope.

             

 

—Harried Fraad, Ph.D., psychoanalytic psychotherapist

author of Bringing it all back home

 Duped! is incredible. You will want to shove it up the nose of every pompous, conservative, right wing, born again, love it or leave it jerk you have ever met.  Dr. Kroth continues to approach the unapproachable. He holds no punches in describing our American culture's blind xenophobia; telling ourselves we are the best while betraying our most basic common sense as the evidence piles up at our feet. We choose leaders who simply tell us what we wish we could believe, and continue to act in ways that shorten our lives, steal our money, and leave us less secure than ever. In this crisp criticism of our collective confusion, we see how we have all become the chickens praising Colonel Sanders. We are simply outgunned by short-term corporate and political profits and power from the getgo. I wish there were more like Dr. Kroth aboard think tanks, committees, and boardrooms across our land, but if there ever were, they are probably planted in the Nevada desert somewhere. Enjoy the ride before your nickel runs out.

 

—Steve Stelle, author of On Shaky Ground

 

Totally eye opening, and, frankly, a very scary narrative. I never realized how deluded we are, and how a thick cloud of denial covers over our public discourse. This is a necessary read for any conscious American.

 

—M.S. Forrest, Ph.D., clinical psychotherapist.

 

 

Ratings and reviews

Kroth has written an eye-opening indictment of American plutocracy masquerading as democracy. Whether one agrees with the author’s conclusions, he has certainly brought forward an array of facts and figures with which to analyze the state of U.S. politics, America’s foreign policy (both acknowledged and covert), and the complacency and naiveté of the average American citizen. It may be that the popularity of Sanders and Trump, in spite of their disparate views, indicates that the voting public is aware that something is amiss with the American political system, and are registering their disapproval by voting for 'outsiders'.

This is an incredible masterpiece in psychology. Deep and penetrating analysis of the human condition. Why hasn't anyone ever thought of this! Ralph G.

About the author

Jerry Kroth, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor Emeritus in the graduate counseling psychology program at Santa Clara University in California. His academic assignments have included courses in psychotherapy and personality theory, dreamwork and research methods. Dr. Kroth has an abiding therapeutic interest in working with dreams, personal oracles and the applications of dream theory to psychohistory and collective psychology. Jerry is also a member of the International Psychohistorical Association and a frequent contributor to the Huffington Post.

Dr. Kroth’s thirteen prior books were in the areas of counseling, psychology, child sexual abuse, learning disorders, metapsychology, psychohistory, collective psychology, transpersonal psychology and research methodology. In addition, he has written and presented over seventy-five papers on anxiety, child development, mass psychology, synchronicity, experimental studies of the dream process, and the psychology of propaganda. Professor Kroth lives in California with his wife and two daughters. He currently has over 1,500 Youtube subscribers, and maintains a website: http://collectivepsych.com  

His most recent books are listed below:

Conspiracy in Camelot: the complete history of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Algora)

Psyche’s Exile: an empirical odyssey in search of the soul. (Libre Digital) 

The Lindbergh kidnapping: mobs, mass psychology and myth. (Genotype) 

Aliens and Man: a synopsis of facts and beliefs. (Algora)

Coup d’etat: the assassination of President John Kennedy. Genotype, 2013—Linked with this text is a video podcast entitled “The Kennedy assassination: what really happened.” which has been viewed by 300,000 persons. 

The Psychic Immune System: a hidden epiphenomenon of the body's own defenses. Rowman & Littlefield, 2016, in press

Dr. Kroth maintains a website at collectivepsych.com