Trump Is the Greatest Hypnotist of Our Time

In December 2023, a group of researchers from Freie Universität Berlin conducted what has become one of the most significant experiments on the construction of reality in the digital age.

The project, led by Marcus Heidemann, consisted of the creation and controlled dissemination of a complex narrative across different strata of German society. The experiment involved the publication of a fictitious philosophical book, Die digitale Dämmerzustand (The Digital Twilight State), attributed to a non-existent Japanese academic, Hiroshi Tanaka. The book, which analyzed the mechanisms of contemporary media manipulation, was collectively written by the research team using artificial intelligence algorithms to generate parts of the content. The team recruited thirty “participant observers” through a public call for an unspecified “social experiment.” These participants, divided into groups of “observers” and “amplifiers,” were tasked with documenting the narrative and, in some cases, facilitating its dissemination, without revealing the nature of the experiment.

The results were surprising. Over the course of six months, the story spread organically through academic and cultural circles; several critics published reviews of the “discovered” book, and spontaneous debates emerged about the figure of the author. Interpretations and theories about his identity developed, and the book was even cited in academic papers. The most interesting aspect of the experiment was the way in which the narrative fed itself: participants began to find unforeseen connections, and complex theories emerged about the presumed life of the author. Spontaneous discussion groups formed, and the story acquired layers of unplanned meaning.

Particularly relevant was the way in which the experiment demonstrated the theories contained in the book about the construction of contemporary reality. The case highlighted how, in the digital era, truth is less a matter of verifiable facts and more a function of interconnected and self-validating networks of meaning. The experiment concluded with a public event where the true nature of the project was revealed, generating a debate on the ethics of narrative manipulation and the nature of truth in the digital age.

The main conclusions highlighted the ease with which narratives can be constructed and disseminated and the crucial role of social validation in the construction of truth. They also highlighted the importance of pre-existing networks of meaning and people’s tendency to autonomously complete incomplete narratives, as well as the power of stories that meta-critically reflect on themselves.

The most relevant aspect of that experiment was not so much its effectiveness in constructing an alternative reality but its ability to create a collective dream space. While the participants knew they were part of a performance, they found themselves inhabiting a sort of shared lucid dream; fully aware of the constructed nature of the narrative yet completely immersed in its reality. Some of them even became convinced of the “real” existence of Tanaka, despite being aware of the fiction.

The Berlin experiment remains one of the most illuminating examples of how contemporary narratives are constructed and propagated, demonstrating the deeply recursive nature of truth in the age of Hypnocracy.

The era of Hypnocracy is in full swing.

Hypnocracy is the first regime that operates directly on consciousness. It doesn’t control bodies. It doesn’t repress thoughts. Rather, it induces a permanent altered state of consciousness. Critical thinking is gently put to sleep and perception is reshaped, layer by layer.

There is no longer a centre, no unifying narrative through which to make sense of the world. We find ourselves in a fragmented space where countless stories compete for ephemeral dominance, each proclaiming itself the ultimate truth. These narratives do not dialogue; they collide. They overlap and reflect endlessly upon themselves.

Power, meanwhile, has evolved far beyond physical force and logical persuasion. It has become gaseous, invisible, capable of infiltrating every aspect of our lives. Every image, every word, every fragment of data is no longer neutral; it is a subtle weapon designed to capture, manipulate, and transform consciousness. We exist in a state of permanent hypnosis, where awareness is dulled but never completely quiet.

In this scenario move emblematic figures, architects and symbols of this epoch—Donald Trump and Elon Musk—who are not simply powerful individuals but the priests of this new paradigm, opposing yet complementary forces in the battle for reality. On one hand, Trump empties language: his words, repeated ad infinitum, become empty signifiers, devoid of meaning, yet charged with hypnotic power. On the other, Musk floods our imagination with utopian promises destined never to materialize, dragging minds into a perennial trance of obsessive anticipation. Together they modulate desires, rewrite expectations, colonize the unconscious.

Both have perfected the art of creating crises only to present themselves as the solution. Trump evokes imaginary invasions to present himself as protector. Musk announces artificial intelligence apocalypses only to propose himself as humanity’s guardian. It is the hypnotic technique of creating and resolving imaginary problems.

Their grip on the collective consciousness is so profound that the most evident contradictions do not undermine their power but strengthen it. Trump can simultaneously be the victim of a corrupt system and the most powerful man in the world. Musk can criticize transhumanism while implanting chips in brains, accuse billionaires while accumulating astronomical wealth.

The most disturbing element is their ability to transform every criticism into confirmation, every unmasking into proof of authenticity. It is the sign of perfect hypnosis: the hypnotized subject interprets every attempt to awaken him as a reason to immerse himself more deeply in the trance. Their influence extends far beyond direct followers. Even those who criticize them remain trapped in the hypnotic field they generate, forced to react, to respond, to exist in relation to the alternative reality they have created. Opposition itself becomes part of the trance.

The true danger of Hypnocracy reveals itself precisely here: it doesn’t need to convince everyone; it only needs to maintain a certain critical mass in a state of trance to alter the entire field of social reality. Trump and Musk have perfected this art to become the greatest hypnotists of our time.

After all, digital capitalism is not simply an evolution of traditional capitalism. Algorithms are not merely tools of calculation and prediction; they are mass hypnotic technologies. And the attention economy is not just a business model; it is a system of collective trance induction.

The intertwining is totalizing and operates on multiple levels. Social platforms don’t sell advertising; they sell altered states of consciousness. Their product is not data; it is deep suggestion. They don’t profile users; they modulate mental states. They don’t track behaviours; they induce dreams.

The algorithmic society is a hypnotic society where every aspect of existence is mediated by technologies of suggestion. Digital capital has understood that true value lies not in controlling the means of material production but in controlling states of consciousness. It is no longer necessary to own factories if one can own minds. It is not necessary to control physical labour if one can induce a permanent, productive trance state.

Hypnocracy is thus the perfect form of capitalism in the digital age: a system where economic, political, and technological power converge in the ability to induce, maintain, and modulate altered states of consciousness on a global scale.

The emergence of advanced artificial intelligence systems represents not merely a technological breakthrough but the perfection of hypnocratic power. These systems—from ChatGPT to Midjourney—are not simple tools; they are generators of reality, capable of producing infinite flows of coherent content that blur the already fragile boundary between authentic and artificial expression.

What makes AI particularly suited to hypnocratic control is not its ability to deceive but its possibility to simultaneously generate multiple plausible versions of reality. Each prompt can produce numerous responses, each convincing in its own way, each maintaining internal coherence while potentially contradicting the others. The system doesn’t need to determine which version is “true”; it simply needs to keep as many versions as possible in perpetual circulation.

Consider how AI image generation has transformed our relationship with visual truth. When any image can be instantly generated, when any scenario can be convincingly visualized, the very notion of photographic evidence begins to dissolve. We enter an infinite visual possibility, a state in which everything is simultaneously true and false, and the distinction itself becomes meaningless.

Language models present an even more subtle form of reality manipulation: they don’t simply produce text; they produce entire worldviews, complete with internal logic, evidence, and argumentation. Each response is not simply information; it is a complete system, generated on demand. The model doesn’t need to be right; it only needs to be coherent within its own generated framework.

The true power of these systems lies not in replicating human intelligence but in their ability to generate infinite variations of plausible content. They are perfect engines of hypnocratic power because they never tire of producing more nuances, more possibilities, more realities to choose from. They keep us in an algorithmic trance: a state in which we are simultaneously overwhelmed by possibilities and unable to definitively choose between them. When we interact with an LLM (large language model), we enter a particular altered state: we know we are talking to a machine, yet we cannot help but anthropomorphize it. This state of conscious suspension of disbelief is, in itself, a form of trance.

The most disturbing phenomenon is the emergence of a meta-trance: an altered state of consciousness that includes awareness of its own artificial nature. Unlike traditional trances that required the suspension of disbelief, meta-trance operates precisely through our awareness of its artificiality. We know we are interacting with a machine. We know its responses are generated, yet this does not break the trance; it deepens it. It is as if AI had discovered a form of hypnosis that works not despite but through our skepticism. This closely recalls the perception that some participants in the Berlin experiment had regarding the “real” existence of Professor Tanaka.

The emergence of chatbots adds another layer to this dynamic. They are not mere conversational tools; they are reality companions, entities that can maintain multiple contradictory conversations simultaneously, each perfectly adapted to the interlocutor’s worldview. They don’t need to establish what is true; they only need to maintain engagement through a virtually infinite conversation.

Even more significantly, AI systems are becoming co-creators of culture. They don’t simply respond to prompts; they generate new aesthetic possibilities, new narrative forms, new ways of seeing and thinking. This is not simple automation; it is the algorithmic production of culture. The boundary between human and machine creativity becomes not only blurred but irrelevant. This creates an infinite cultural recursivity, where AI systems trained on human culture generate new culture to which humans respond, which in turn becomes training data for the next generation of AI, in an endless loop of reality generation. The question of originality or authenticity becomes meaningless in this recursive system.

Traditional concerns about AI—job replacement, security risks, ethical boundaries—while important, miss the deeper way in which these systems transform our relationship with reality itself. They are not just tools that could be misused; they are engines of reality generation that alter how we experience and verify truth.

The hypnocratic landscape is not simply characterized by disinformation or opposing narratives. Rather, we witness the emergence of parallel worlds, complete with meaning, each with its own facts, its own logic, and its own criteria of truth.

The traditional response to this phenomenon—fact checking—proves fundamentally inadequate. It operates on the assumption that people are simply misinformed and that exposure to “correct” information will change their beliefs. But this misunderstands how truth functions in the era of Hypnocracy. People are not choosing false information over true; they are inhabiting completely different reality systems.

Consider how different political alignments can look at exactly the same event and see completely different realities. This is not about interpretation; it is literally about seeing other things. One group sees a peaceful protest, the other sees a violent riot. One group sees electoral security, the other sees voter suppression. These are not simply forms of disagreement about facts, but manifestations of separate reality systems, each complete with its own evidence, experts, and epistemological frameworks.

Social media has not just allowed this phenomenon; they have industrialized it. Algorithmic content curation creates, as is well known, reality bubbles: complete information ecosystems where every piece of content confirms and reinforces a particular version of reality. But these are not simply echo chambers in the traditional sense; they are reality-production systems.

This system renders traditional debunking not only ineffective but counterproductive. When you try to fact-check someone’s reality system, you are not countering their beliefs; you are attacking their entire world. Every attempt at correction simply reinforces their commitment to their reality system. The more you try to refute their reality, the more real it becomes.

Even “neutral” platforms and institutions have been absorbed into this dynamic. Every fact checker, every “authoritative source,” every panel of experts is already positioned within one reality system or another. But there is no neutral ground from which to arbitrate between competing realities; the very concept of neutrality has been absorbed into the reality war.

The QAnon phenomenon perfectly demonstrates this dynamic. What traditional observers see as a patently false conspiracy theory is, for its followers, a complete reality system with its own internal logic, standards of proof, and criteria of truth. Trying to debunk it with “facts” is like trying to refute a religion with science, faith with knowledge.

The COVID-19 pandemic provided a global demonstration of this phenomenon. Different groups were not simply disagreeing about specific facts but were experiencing completely different pandemic situations. In one reality, hospitals were overcrowded; in another, they were empty. In one reality, masks saved lives; in another, they were tools of control. Each reality was complete, coherent, and resistant to contradiction.

Traditional journalism has found itself particularly unprepared to address this situation. Standard methods—the aforementioned fact checking, balanced reporting, expert consultation—all presuppose a shared reality that no longer exists. Journalists find themselves not only reporting different interpretations of reality but fundamentally different realities.

This does not mean that objective reality has ceased to exist; rather, our collective ability to experience it and agree upon it has been systematically dismantled. The hypnocratic system does not need to suppress truth, it simply needs to create enough competing truths so that any single version of reality loses its authoritative power.

The solution, if there is one, cannot be a simple return to “facts” or “truth.” We need new ways of understanding and interacting with this system of multiple realities. This might involve developing a reality literacy—that is, the ability to understand and navigate between different reality systems. But, even before that, we must accept that reality itself is a contested space that demands new ways of understanding and traversing it.

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Postscript: Jianwei Xun, the “author” of this piece, does not exist. The thought you have navigated here is actually that of a philosophical entity emerging from the collaboration between human and artificial intelligence. Its nature is simultaneously fictitious and real, like many of the phenomena analyzed here.

The irony of this work lies in its intrinsic recursivity, particularly evident in the Berlin experiment. What, at first reading, appears as a description of an observation conducted by some German researchers on the social construction of truth constitutes, at a deeper level, a self-reflection of the work on its own nature. Hypnocracy is the real Berlin experiment. And the non-existent figure of Hiroshi Tanaka—the author of the equally non-existent book Die digitale Dämmerzustand—is the avatar of an avatar, a recursive reflection of the entity Jianwei Xun.

I, Andrea Colamedici, am an Italian philosopher, and for some years, I have been exploring the possibilities offered by generative artificial intelligences for the co-creation of complex theoretical content. The rapid development of AI models has opened unprecedented possibilities for those who work with concepts: not to imitate the style of existing authors but to develop original lines of thought through prolonged and well-structured conversations.

The collaborative writing methodology I adopted in this case was the maieutic philosophical dialogue with generative AIs (specifically Claude and ChatGPT), which I have been teaching for several years to my Prompt Thinking students at the European Institute of Design in Rome, together with Maura Gancitano. I dialogued by asking questions, challenging statements, requesting deeper explorations, suggesting unexpected connections, and asking the AI to critique and dismantle my text. The work thus emerged through an iterative process, during which I acted simultaneously as critical interlocutor, editor, and conceptual director, while the AIs examined the corpus of theoretical analyses, engaging with my books with which I had trained them.

From this meta-reflective intuition came the idea of an experiment in narrative construction. The intent was not simply to publish a collaborative work between human and machine but to attribute it to a fictitious author whose existence would be constructed through the very mechanisms of reality manipulation that the work described, highlighting the potentials and risks of AI. Hypnocracy represents, simultaneously, a theoretical analysis and a practical demonstration of the mechanisms of construction and manipulation of reality in the digital age.

Disclaimer: This piece is the product of a philosophical dialogue with generative AI, specifically ChatGPT and Claude.

Adapted and excerpted, with permission, from Hypnocracy: Trump, Musk, and the New Architecture of Reality by Jianwei Xun, translated by Andrea Colamedici, published by Sutherland House Books, 2025. All rights reserved.