Wetiko: The Virus of Egoism and Selfishness According to Native Americans

[The Minds Journal]: Did you know that according to the Native Americans, humans tend to be infected by a virus called “Wetiko” or the “virus of selfishness”? Seems absurd right? To be able to think that humans may be infected by a selfishness virus is beyond what one can fathom.

Superstitions are quite common among human beings. More often than not, we tend to believe in things that cannot be logically explained. Native Americans believe selfishness is a virus that can affect us. They believe it to be a pathogen that forces the victim to feed their incessant need to be selfish. This allows humanity to become its worst enemy. This unrealistic view comes from a piece of literature called “Dispelling Wetiko”. Carl Jung wrote this literary piece to explain the concept of humans getting infected by wetiko. He pointed out that we live in an era where psychosocial phenomena prove the existence of a “virus” of selfishness.

“Wetiko” is a term used by Native Americans to designate an evil person who doesn’t care about the well being of others or a person who engages in selfish acts despite the cost. This book is not negative or reproachful. It has merely explained how every virus tends to seek a host to invade and feed off but we all have our immunity system or defensive barriers to protect ourselves. It is possible to strengthen our “psychological immune system” to keep ourselves protected from the selfishness virus.

Wetiko is believed to be a psychic form of blindness. Psychiatrist Carl Jung refers to wetiko by the name Antimimos that is described as the “imitator and evil principle”. Antimimos is a kind of deception that can be thought of as counter mimicry. Antimimos is an evil force that attempts to lead humans astray and transforms truth to falsehood and falsehood to the truth, which ultimately leads us to forgetfulness. It is believed that potentially anyone can fall into the shadow and unwillingly become an instrument of the virus attempting to act its will through us....<<<Read More>>>...

Wetiko in a Nutshell: Who Do You Think You Are?

[Awaken In The Dream]: More and more people are hearing about the Native American idea of the wetiko mind-virus. Wetiko—called by many different names throughout history—is at the very root of the collective madness and corresponding evil that we, as a human species, are collectively acting out on the world stage. Though wetiko is multi-dimensional, many-faceted and utterly profound, its fundamental essence is actually quite simple to understand.

The process of identification—of who we think we are—is at the root of wetiko. “Who do we think we are?” is a real question that implies that our sense of identity is related to our thinking, to our very mind itself. Our subjective experience of identity itself is quite malleable and is a function of our own mind, which is to say we are actively participating in the moment-by-moment creation of our experience of identity. Our sense of identity molds us, while we are at the same time the ones crafting our identity. What we don’t want is to let wetiko forge our identity for us. Because wetiko disease (which I’ve also referred to as Malignant Egophrenia, i.e., ME disease) is, in its essence, to have fallen into a state of mistaken identity, the best medicine for wetiko is to know who we are.

Our true nature, our true identity—who we really are—is impervious to wetiko’s pernicious influence. Wetiko can’t take over, possess or have any effect on our true nature, which is not an object that can be manipulated or possessed by wetiko (or anything else, for that matter). For this reason, wetiko’s strategy is to set up a substitute counterfeit version—a simulation—of ourselves. It then tricks us into identifying with this fraudulent version of ourselves. Wetiko cannot stand it when we identify with our true nature as creative beings, for then it has nothing to sink its roots—and fangs—into.

If we don’t pick up and mobilize the creativity that is an essential aspect of our very nature, however, wetiko is happy to use our unexpressed creativity for us in order to serve its agenda, which we can be sure does not serve our best interests. Wetiko has no creativity on its own, but it’s a master impersonator - we can conceive of it as the ape of the divine. The apocryphal texts call wetiko “the counterfeiting spirit” (the antimimon pneuma). A master mime, wetiko creates a copycat version of us, literally masquerading as ourselves....<<<Read More>>>