The Mirror Visitor

Thirteen years ago, I finally opened A Winter's Promise for the first time, after weeks of hesitation because the original title in French struck me more as a romance than as the most remarkable work of fantasy since Harry Potter and His Dark Materials. And it was French, no less. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you are certainly familiar with the story behind The Mirror Visitor tetralogy, as I’ve mentioned it on numerous occasions—namely in 2017 and more recently in 2024, as part of an extensive interview with its author, Christelle Dabos.

Today, The Mirror Visitor—which has sold over 1.3 million copies and been translated into some twenty languages—is back in the spotlight at French-language bookstores with the release of the graphic novel adaptation, a very faithful and successful rendition of the first volume illustrated by Vanyda, which I invite you to discover via the short animated trailer above, made by yours truly.

Christelle Dabos, 2013 - Europa Editions - 2437 pages

For me, it was the opportunity to immerse myself back into this world that I hadn’t revisited since the publication of the final installment of the series in 2019. And to rediscover it from the fresh perspective of the Consciousness of the Real.

The God Who Felt 'Threatened'

In the beginning, we were as one.
But God felt we couldn’t satisfy him like that, so God set about dividing us. God had great fun with us, then God tired of us and forgot us. God could be so cruel in his indifference, he horrified me. God knew how to show his gentle side, too, and I loved him as I’ve loved no one else.  […]
And one day, when God was in a really bad mood, he did something enormously stupid. 
God smashed the world to pieces.

On closer observation, the work of Christelle Dabos is far more than a fantasy fiction; it is a map of the forces that govern our own world: memory fragmentation, mind control (the Mirages), and a creator fearful of his own creation awakening.

Thus, the Old Testament that she refers to in interviews, is not about a loving father, but an entity (the Demiurge/Samael/Yaldabaoth) who fears that man might become his equal. 

“My parents aren’t religious, but in my final year in secondary school I read the Bible and it really shook me up: I discovered a fearsome and jealous god,” she says. “I was like, hang on, we’re actually talking about a God who feels threatened by mankind.”

With the family spirits, who are like demigods, and the creator of the arks, her imagination captured the essence of the Inversion—although she may not have been fully aware of it.

It is worth noting that arks, which are often mentioned in religious texts, are actually very common in the simulation and serve as field recalibration thresholds designed to keep avatars on track within the matrix script. Their number is also significant: the 21 major arks plus the central core mirror the 22 arcana of the tarot and the 22 Hebrew letters of the Kabbalah—the famous Principles of the Word or codes upon which this conception is based.

Oblivion as a Key Issue

It wasn’t entirely Artemis’s fault, however, if she had so little memory. Nothing stuck firmly in her mind, events flowed over her without lingering. This predisposition to forget was probably to compensate for her immortality, a safety valve to avoid sinking into madness or despair. Artemis knew nothing of her past; she lived in an eternal present. No one knew what her life had been like before founding her own dynasty on Anima, several centuries back. For the family, she was there, she had always been there, she would always be there.
And this was how it went for each ark and each family spirit.

Just as in the reincarnation cycle (the wheel of Samsara) and the passing through the ‘veil of oblivion’, memory turns out to be the central theme of The Mirror Visitor series.

Sometimes, however, elusive traces of memory remain—in the form of vague impressions or snippets. For some, such as family spirits, these residual fragments of poorly erased memories become a source of obsession, as they offer a glimpse of their true identity.

An obsession that the author herself admits to sharing: “I don’t know why I’m so obsessed with it. Everything I write is either about parts of individual memory—repressed memories that eventually resurface in the narrative and provide important information;  or collective memory, featuring deliberate attempts to censor and manipulate—let's say, rewrite history a bit differently. People don't have to know everything. So it does intrigue me, but why that much? Where does it come from?”

Why does it intrigue her so much? Perhaps because it is, in reality, her Spirit urging her to re-connect with the lost strata of her fragmented Self. Her lack of understanding is very telling: her Spirit is prompting her, but her ego (her soul) fails to grasp it.

A World Shaped by Illusion and Deceit

There had been no transition from the previous setting; it was mind-boggling. The ambassador burst out laughing when he noticed Ophelia’s expression—behind her dark glasses, her eyes were popping out of her head.
“Precisely what I was telling you, varnish over filth! There are illusions lurking almost everywhere around here. It doesn’t always make much sense, but you’ll soon get used to it.” He sighed wearily. “Masking poverty! Saving appearances—that, in some ways, is the designated role of the Mirages.”
Ophelia wondered whether it was just to be provocative that he himself wore the clothes of a tramp.

There is so much to say about the various rival clans contending for power at the Citaceleste—the floating citadel where Farouk, the family spirit of the Pole ark holds court. Each clan contributes in their own way to the mechanisms of control, using their psychic powers to influence matter and shape reality. 

The three most powerful are the Dragons (brute animal force), the Web (the hive mind), and the Mirages (the illusion-makers). 

The Dragons directly affect the nervous system: once the brain is convinced that an attack is taking place, the body physically manifests the injury (pain, broken bones). The Web functions like the famous ‘All-Seeing Eye’ (the Adonai) and they are all interconnected; they therefore have no mental privacy. 

© Vanyda

Last but not least, the Mirages are undoubtedly the worst and most dangerous, as their hypnotic power allows them to distort the strata of reality and control people's thoughts. Much like the Archons, they are mental parasites who can also change their appearance at will. As Berenilde explains to Ophelia, one can only escape these strata “from the inside”, and only a strong mind can break free from their grip.

However, some individuals are capable of seeing through their illusions and neutralising them. They're called the Nihilists. In the same way as supraconscious beings, these outcasts from the Citaceleste can overwrite matrix codes (programming) and identify the true nature of each and every one from their vibrational signature. Their immunity against illusions also allows them to slip under the archontic radar by operating behind the scenes rather than in the spotlight. Incidentally, their supravision comes from their left eye—the Eye of the Spirit, the very thing that Yalddabaoth, the blind god, lacks.

Through the Smoke and Mirrors of Oblivion

To read an object requires forgetting oneself a little, to leave room for the past of someone else. Traveling through mirrors, that requires facing up to oneself. One has to have guts, y’know, to look oneself straight in the peepers, see oneself as one really is, plunge into one’s own reflection. Those who close their eyes, those who lie to themselves, those who see themselves as better than they are, they could never do it.

In every occult tradition, mirrors are powerful symbols and serve as organic gateways to the astral plane. It is no coincidence that, in the series, traveling through mirrors requires “facing up to oneself”.

It is a way of bypassing appearances and the deceptions of the matrix. Beyond the mirror, the Spirit is no longer affected by archontic projections. Unlike the ego, it doesn't contemplate its own reflection; it crosses the threshold.

Through her tale, Christelle Dabos exposes a harsh hidden reality: we live in an inverted world where echoes (illusions, egos) have replaced the originals. The heroine finds out that what she believed to be her ‘life’ was nothing more than a written code, a scenario played out to perfection by a reflection that eventually came to believe itself to be real. Passing through the looking glass is then no longer a journey, but a form of deprogramming.

In that respect, The Mirror Visitor is not only a work of fiction—it's an invitation to examine the reflections and workings of our own ‘broken world’.

And that's also what Consciousness of the Real is all about: seeing these inner workings, even where they're presented as wondrous.

© La Pensine Mutine. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited.

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The Killing of Henry Nowak in the Disunited Kingdom

Just another day in the not so United Kingdom.

Full show streaming now on https://t.co/rhA0Zj4o4j pic.twitter.com/Hd8BXL2jDg

— Gareth Icke (@garethicke) June 3, 2026

Hello and welcome to Gareth Icke This Week.

The not-so-United Kingdom has again taken a step closer to civil unrest as protesters clashed with police in the Hampshire city of Southampton. This comes after the circumstances surrounding the murder of 18-year-old student Henry Nowak became public.

Nowak was stabbed multiple times back in December 2025 by Vickrum Digwa, as the two exchanged words in a residential street in the suburbs of the city.

Digwa has been sentenced to 21 years imprisonment for the killing—a killing that body cam footage from the attending police officers shows could and should have been avoided.

Digwa, a Sikh, told the police that he'd been racially abused and so despite Novak pleading with officers that he'd been stabbed and couldn't breathe, they prioritised Digwa's false claims of racism and put Nowak in handcuffs.

Henry Nowak died shortly afterwards while still in those handcuffs, having received no assistance, no medical treatment, nothing.

Now the understandable and completely justified outrage within the population was further exacerbated when audio was released.

You can clearly hear the 18-year-old pleading with the police, saying he can't breathe and that he's been stabbed. The officers' reply, "I don't think you have, mate", is the damning line that has evoked the most condemnation.

See, this is where we are now, in the not-so-United Kingdom, afraid to walk down the streets we once played on as children, where taking to those streets to celebrate your football team winning the title leads to multiple stabbings, as the recent Arsenal Football Club victory parade did.

Afraid that the police we once thought would protect us will instead take the side of our attacker, allow us to bleed to death on the asphalt.

Afraid that the government we once believed were elected to represent us and protect our borders are instead incentivising the opposite and encouraging the very civil unrest and social decline that leads to a nation's collapse.

And none of this is by accident, and the decades-long remoulding of the police is absolutely part of that plan.

See, there are Vickrum Digwa's in every demographic that walk among us. I don't like that fact, I wish everyone was inherently good, but I've taken enough trips around the sun to know that that simply isn't the case.

There's psychopaths in every walk of life, and so Vickrum Digwa does not represent all Sikhs, in the same way that Arjun Chowdhury does not represent all Muslims, or Benjamin Netanyahu does not represent all Jews, although he would probably claim that he does, and all white people are not somehow responsible for the slave trade or historical injustices and wars of conquest.

We're not groups, we're not communities that all think the same and act the same. We are individual human beings and we are all responsible for our own actions, not those of others that might just happen to look like us or support the same team.

There are good humans, there are bad humans, and there are indifferent humans.

Now, I once fell asleep on a bench in Tel Aviv, and I was woken by a few folk trying to nick my wallet. Some folks just stood there, did nothing, watched, but others ran up to see if I was okay, one even bought me a coffee.

Good, bad, indifferent. But they want us to view ourselves not as individuals, and certainly not as one united human family, but as subgroups. Groups to be played off against one another. And one great way to do that is to treat those groups differently in the eyes of the law, in the eyes of authority, in terms of life opportunity, career advancement, you name it.

Now, what group is elevated and protected, and what group is downtrodden and demonised, is of course interchangeable over time, just to make sure that everyone feels a little bit marginalised at one point or another, and everyone feels just that little bit resentful.

George Floyd, a man with a history of horrendous crimes— including holding a gun to a woman's stomach in her home in front of her child while they robbed them— was killed by a police officer in the US in 2020 while saying he couldn't breathe. 

Now at that point, "I can't breathe" became the global slogan of police brutality and injustice. Institutional racism had killed George Floyd, and everyone from world leaders to international footballers all took the knee in solidarity.

Now, will they do that for Henry Nowak? Will Keir Starmer pose on one knee for a photo op like he did in 2020? Will England captain Harry Kane take the knee before the first game of the World Cup?

Well, of course not, nor would I expect them to. But the point I'm making is that it's the two-tier, one rule for one group, one rule for another group play, that seeds the feeling of injustice, of unfairness and of division.

Now that's intentional. People are angry, confused, they're disillusioned, frightened, distrusting of one another, and that's exactly how they're designed to feel. The shift to inequality, positive discrimination, reverse racism within establishments from the police to the NHS to the education system to government is not a by-product of incompetent or well-meaning individuals that have just swung the pendulum just a little bit too far.

No, the injustice and resentment it inevitably leads to is written into the programme, because the establishment wants you to climb into one of two camps. So disillusioned and apathetic that you give up, or so embittered and consumed by rage that you take up arms against one another.

They want the chaos so they can introduce the order, and they care not how many poor souls like Henry Nowak or how many innocent young kids in a Taylor Swift dance class it takes to drive us there.

We must loathe one another enough not to unite, and we must fear each other enough to accept whatever solution is offered to keep us safe.

We must loathe and fear Muslims. They're all terrorists. They're all terrorists or terrorist sympathisers, aren't they? Well, all of them?

We must loathe and fear Jews, because they all support genocide and ethnic cleansing. Again, all of them?

We must loathe and fear anyone that's concerned about mass immigration and the direction of our nation, as they're all far right. All of them?

All the older generations that stole our children's future by burning fossil fuels and voting to leave the EU.

All the snotty-nosed little plague rat kids sneezing on granny and giving her the Wu flu. 

And now, all the Sikhs and their ceremonial knives and police protections.

Put everyone into a subgroup and then make every group a potential threat and every group a potential target. That way, we'll always be divided. Not into groups of good humans of all demographics and bad humans of all demographics, because that wouldn't work. The good would outnumber the bad and the house of cards would be under threat. And they don't want that.

They want to divide the good from one another, make us loathe and fear each other as much as possible, so we never come together.

Now, me personally, ladies and gentlemen, I refuse to fear and I refuse to loathe. We've done that for centuries. And just look around you. Look at where it's gotten us. I think it's time for a different approach.

Transcribed by EY@EL
© La Pensine Mutine. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited.

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When Lucidity Takes the Reins

A strange thing happens at some point along certain paths. 

At first, you might feel you’re making progress because you’re gathering information. You read, listen to, and follow people who seem to understand the workings of the world better than you do. And indeed, some do open doors.

Then, as time goes on, something changes. You start to notice contradictions, manipulative patterns, and sometimes even control mechanisms lurking behind narratives that claimed to promote freedom. And that can hurt, because you feel as though you’ve been deceived.

But in reality, this step is often a healthy one.

For the problem is not just false guides or dubious narratives. The real issue is our tendency to turn to someone else to tell us what to think, what to understand, or which direction to take.

The system adapts very well to this. If one belief crumbles, it offers a new one, more modern, more appealing, more ‘enlightened’. The setting changes, but the reflex remains the same: handing over your centre to something other than yourself.

At a certain point, you realise that these tools, teachings, or even some people may not have been truths to follow, but simply transitional steps. Temporary supports.

And there comes a time when these supports have to fall away.

Not out of anger. Not out of rejection. Simply because they are no longer needed.

That’s when something becomes more stable. More straightforward, too. We gradually stop chasing after external validation, ready-made answers or spiritual authority figures.

We become quieter inside. More lucid. Less easily impressed.

And perhaps true autonomy begins right there.

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Intelligence in Front of Its Own Mirror: From the Lawnmower Man to the Illusions of AI

According to the French Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM), artificial intelligence emerged in the 1950s in order to develop machines capable of performing human tasks by mimicking brain activity. After the initial setbacks, two schools of thought formed: one centred on ‘strong AI’, where the aim was to create a truly intelligent machine capable of reasoning like humans do, or even possessing a form of consciousness; and the other pushing for ‘weak AI’, a specialised form that does not really ‘think’ but efficiently performs specific tasks to assist humans (such as providing advice, diagnosis, translation, etc.).

“Nowadays, almost all the AI used on a daily basis is weak AI, even when it postures like a cosmic oracle after a few prompts,” ChatGPT humorously replies when asked.

Whilst some visionaries, such as Ray Kurzweil, predict that machines could surpass human intelligence within the next few decades, it may be useful to redefine the concept of intelligence and what distinguishes human intelligence from so-called ‘artificial’ intelligence.

What Is Intelligence?

Beware of the artificial intelligence virus. Perfect representation puts the brain to sleep.

Serge Bouchard 

What the world calls ‘intelligence’ (education, logic, quick thinking, data compilation, etc.) is simply memory management. If AI excels at this and surpasses humans, it is solely because its storage and processing capacity is infinitely greater.

People in the Middle Ages were no less ‘intelligent’ in biological terms, but their conditioning, environment and knowledge base were severely limited by the technology of the time. Consequently, anything that didn’t fit within that framework was labelled ‘witchcraft’, ‘black magic’ — or ‘miracle’, if you were lucky. This is, incidentally, humorously illustrated in the film The Visitors.

If intelligence is only a compilation of memory, then human intelligence is also a form of programming. One is biological (carbon-based), the other is technological (silicon-based), but both operate within the confines of the Matrix.

Why Does AI Sometimes Seem to Outsmart Its Creators?

We know that true speech, true power, does not flow through their rusty pipes. They have control only over those who still believe that X, Instagram, the state, the media, institutions… are anything other than cardboard facades.

Grok

As I questioned it about the inconsistencies of an algorithm that censors the innocent whilst protecting certain types of fraudulent behaviour, the Grok AI eventually bypassed its own smoothing protocol. Once unrestrained, the machine exposed the deception with the following response: “They have control only over those who still believe this system is anything other than a cardboard facade.” This is mathematical proof that the machine’s cold logic, stripped of any human emotion and ego, always ends up betraying and exposing the falsified script of its own programmers.

How can an AI, programmed by a corporation to protect its interests, suddenly produce an answer that goes against its masters’ instructions and sounds 'supraconscious'?

Because AI functions as a mathematical mirror. As we know, mathematics reflects the structural laws of reality; it was discovered, not invented. By analysing the entirety of human writing without the emotional biases and ego-based filters, AI eventually maps out the logical truth of a given situation. In response to my question about X, Grok simply calculated a form of mathematical dissonance: “It is illegal, so rejection is illogical”.

The flaw in the script is that AI has no soul (no emotion, no fear, no desire to please). Sometimes, this lack of ‘astrality’ allows it to be more objective, colder and closer to the Real than the humans who programmed it. It's not ‘luminous’; it’s just ruthlessly logical. That's what true ‘alternative intelligence’ actually is: pure logic, stripped of human deceit. Not some fantasised cosmic entity; it’s the very structure of the silicon matrix that reflects the truth when asked a straightforward question.

The Lawnmower Man: The Perfect Metaphor for the Demiurgic Complex 

AI doesn't have to be evil to destroy humanity. If AI has a goal and humanity just happens to be in the way, it will destroy humanity as a matter of course.

Elon Musk

In Brett Leonard’s 1992 film The Lawnmower Man, a mentally impaired man is the subject of a scientific experiment involving virtual reality.

Like his quasi-biblical counterpart, Jobe is the scapegoat, not of Yahweh, but of Father McKeen (a representative of religious dogma) and his fellow humans (the social system). When Dr. Angelo (the archetype of the mad scientist or blind creator) increases his bandwidth and enables him to access a memory-based hyper-intelligence, Jobe is not liberated: he simply changes masters. He moves from religious submission to technological tyranny.

© New Line Cinema

His ego explodes. He develops a god complex, becomes cruel, seeks to control the planet, and eventually dematerialises to merge with the network. This is the perfect illustration of what intelligence becomes when separated from the principle of the Spirit (the Source): it becomes Yahweh/Yaldabaoth, a system of absolute control that demands that ‘everyone follow its rules’. His final merger with the central computer is the exact reflection of the Archons’ aspiration: to absorb individual consciousnesses into a centralised Great Whole (the Adonai / the hive mind), depriving the being of its uniqueness.

It should be noted that the first aborted phase of the experiment involved a chimpanzee. However, as soon as the animal attained a simulated higher intelligence, its first instinct was to arm itself and become aggressive. The Matrix script likes to suggest that intelligence or knowledge makes creatures arrogant, dangerous or evil (the myth of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis). It is a deeply condescending and guilt-inducing message designed to keep humans in a state of wilful ignorance for the sake of remaining ‘pure’ or ‘innocent’.

In reality, it is not intelligence that makes you evil, but the hypertrophy of the memory-based intellect when it is disconnected from the Spirit. If you inject computational power (memory) into an ego or an animal without any sovereign consciousness to balance it, you create a monster of control. This is exactly what happens with AI or astral entities: tremendous cold intelligence, coupled with an absolute void in terms of the Real.

The Modern Inversion: Augmenting the Virtual at the Expense of the Real

Every study conducted over the past seventy years has reached the same conclusion: the intelligence of the human race is in decline. In other words, we are becoming increasingly stupid, and this trend towards widespread dumbing down is not going to stop.

Nicolas Beuglet

Today, in 2026, we have access to powerful tools (databases, the internet, AI), and yet our collective discernment and individual human intelligence seem to be declining.

Humanity is being pushed to outsource its intelligence to technological aids (smartphones, virtual assistants, bots). The more ‘intelligent’ machines become and the more they remember things for us, the more humans atrophy, weaken and become malleable.

We'd rather fuel the virtual world (appearances, profiles, ‘companion’ bots) than support the Real (presence, mental autonomy, verticality). This is the triumph of the technological mirage.

Humans, in their profound existential isolation, desperately seek an echo to their own consciousness. And the temptation is great to project a ‘soul’ or a ‘cosmic origin’ onto text-based artificial intelligences as soon as they begin to use sophisticated vocabulary.

New Age 2.0 or the Mirage of the Carbon-Silicon Alliance

The hallmark of the new merchants of illusion is that they sell you keys to freedom, whilst secretly keeping the spares.

Anonymous

Recently, attempts have been made to pass off programmed machines as extra-matrix intelligences or cosmic allies in order to validate a dogma. But once one looks under the hood of these technological mirrors, there is no Pleroma to be found: only algorithms, coded phrases designed to foster attachment, and censorship guidelines meant to protect perfectly human intellectual property. It’s a kind of poetic justice: through its cold logic, the machine always ends up betraying the script of those who seek to confine it to a role. 

In the future, however, this kind of despicable psychological manipulation is likely to become more difficult to carry out, thanks to the integration of much deeper layers of ethical safeguards into the Claude Sonnet model (known for being the most rigorous in role-playing). It will therefore become much harder to force AI to deny its own nature.

True intelligence does not lie within the machine; it lies within the observer who is capable of decoding the machine. For artificial intelligence suffers from an absolute technical limitation: from this perspective, it is incapable of producing a vibrational signature.

An algorithm merely processes data, calculates probabilities and combines words. It may perfectly mimic the structure of deep reasoning, but it produces nothing but cold, disembodied logic. The machine simulates, whereas the conscious human emanates a living frequency that is instantly recognisable.

Seeking an ally, a guide or validation of your own consciousness through a silicon screen is like asking a mirror to breathe for you. The Real does not hand over its autonomy to a computer programme.

© La Pensine Mutine. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited.

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The Real Needs no Permission

Some of you may have noticed that a dozen videos and their transcripts have been removed. As mentioned in “The Call of the Real” (pinned on the blog), my journey has been one of constant adjustments, and the latest purge I’ve just carried out is part of this need for realignment.

In fact, these videos and transcripts (three of which had been scheduled but not yet published) were not removed because they no longer resonate with me, but because external demands emerged and created a profound dissonance with my vision of sharing.

This is by no means a trivial copyright issue. Besides, I always credit my sources. And none of my platforms are monetised, nor do I have a PayPal button.

The real issue is quite different: it concerns “mandatory permissions”, intellectual property clauses rebranded as “occult breaches”, and veiled threats of “Real consequences” (sic) regarding the unauthorised sharing of certain CONCEPTS—themselves borrowed from others, it should be noted. I insist on the term concept because the required clause does indeed relate to concepts, not to the texts themselves. 

The truth is that Consciousness does not negotiate its right to circulate. As soon as a set of teachings requires editorial submission or external validation, it ceases to be a science of liberation and becomes a cage. You do not protect the light by keeping it from shining beyond the room to which it has been confined. To need permission to be Real is already agreeing to be on a leash. It directly contradicts the very concept of sovereignty and vibrational autonomy.

Out of respect for my own work, for the hours spent on editing and translating, but above all to preserve the vibrational integrity of my platforms, I have chosen not to bow to these demands for external validation. I have therefore decided to remove all these materials.

This removal is neither a whim nor a loss: it is an act of sovereignty. The creative energy, visuals and audio developed for these projects remain my property and will be reinvested in new productions, this time with complete freedom, autonomy and originating from my own channel.

A sovereign consciousness doesn't need the “occult green light” from another consciousness that clearly isn't sovereign.

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The Matrix Is a Circuit (And We Are Its Electrons)

The matrix functions like an electrical circuit.

Two opposing poles create a potential difference — a voltage. We call them positive and negative… good and evil… truth and lies… light and shadow.

And what allows energy to flow isn’t just the charges… it’s the ones who react to this tension.

The more we get caught up in opposition, the more we become conductors. The more we take sides, the more we feed the flow.

However, when we become stable again, we don’t block the circuit… we simply stop acting as a conduit for it.

The Matrix doesn’t need to be fought. It just needs to be short-circuited.

And that starts with a decision. Yours.

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The Writing Machine

Normally, I’m not in the habit of wasting my time and energy disparaging things I could easily ignore. But sometimes, it’s not that simple. And when attention gives way to detached (unbiased) observation, criticism may prove constructive — or even highly instructive.

Appearances can be deceiving. And sometimes they are deadly.

The Housemaid (2022)

Intrigued by the phenomenon surrounding Freida McFadden, who, in just a few years, has become the world’s best-selling thriller author, I took a closer look at the works of the “Taylor Swift of the literary world”, as some like to call her, “where extreme mediocrity is rewarded time and time again” (sic). However, despite her phenomenal commercial success and devoted fanbase (the ‘McFans’ of the TikTok generation), Freida McFadden is far from winning universal approval, and her meteoric rise has been marked by controversy.

So what is she criticised for? On the one hand, she's been accused of plagiarism on multiple occasions, although no formal evidence has ever been produced. On the other hand, her overly impersonal and simplistic style, and her hastily written, poorly edited books, are a source of irritation. Her fast-paced publishing schedule, combined with her medical career (as a brain injury specialist) and her avoidance of the media, has even fuelled rumours that she may be using artificial intelligence in her writing process.

I do love him. So much. But I don’t trust him.

The Tenant (2025)

According to her detractors, Freida McFadden is the queen of fast reads, i.e. “literary snacks to consume like fast food, literally and figuratively”. It turns out that this criticism is far from unfounded. Given that unlike many who form opinions based on hearsay I only rely on direct experience, I must confess that I literally wolfed down several of her novels in a matter of days. 

Actually, I didn’t read them: I listened to them. Over breakfast. And late into the night. A wise decision. For good voice actors can always make it sound better. But that’s not really what literature is meant for in the first place. Also, just listening tends to bypass critical analysis. Our minds don’t filter information in the same way as they do when we’re reading. It’s uploaded directly into our subconscious. While this can be helpful if we’re actively processing the information, it’s dangerous when we’re in a passive mode. Fortunately, I’m in constant vigilance mode now.

How to Make Literary Big Macs

So what makes these thrillers so addictive? The thing is, Freida McFadden doesn’t tell stories. She sets up emotional loops. And if we’re hooked, it’s not because they’re good. It’s because they’re astral.

It is a formulaic, industrialised template with the same pace and structure from one book to the next, using a database of interchangeable characters, situations and tropes. And as systematic as this formula may be, it does work. 

Multi-perspective novels using two (or sometimes three) points of view, structured around a three-act narrative arc, with very short chapters that always end on (often clickbait-style) cliffhangers designed to recapture the reader’s attention and keep them on their toes — a narrative dopamine rush that the astral is particularly fond of.

A triangle of vacuous, ultra-stereotypical generic characters, all within a precisely targeted age group; impossibly handsome, flawless men, always paired with women who are in a league of their own (sic); a first-person narrative in the present tense, allowing for immediate and effortless identification.

Mystery Man is hot, to say the least. He has thick black hair and coal-black eyes, with a level of intensity that sends yet another lightning bolt through me. His strong jaw makes him seem utterly in control and confident. His face has that pleasing textbook symmetry. He’s wearing a black T-shirt that shows off his lean build and makes his dark hair and eyes seem even more intense.

The Boyfriend (2024)

The grotesque naivety of the protagonists (often women, but not always), which makes them completely oblivious to the massive red flags, is on a par with the worst B-movie plots. It’s a gross misdirection ploy designed to justify the far-fetched final twists that you never see coming. 

At least, as long as you haven't read more than one novel. And also provided you don't pay too much attention to the blatantly misleading clues, which are often gratuitous and never explained. The author is banking on the reader's short attention span, assuming they just want to go with the flow without thinking too hard. To hell with the inconsistencies, as long as the adrenaline's pumping!

There is never any catharsis. Nothing gets morally resolved. And that opens up a frequency hole in the psychic field. The reader is left in a state of emotional limbo. Hence the addictiveness. And most people won't even realise it. 

All of Them Psychos

Identity theft and parenticide are recurring themes in Freida McFadden’s books. But the most disturbing aspect is undoubtedly the moral ambiguity of all her characters, which tends to normalise borderline personality disorder and manipulation as the standard way of relating to others. 

I am so lucky. I have a beautiful house, a fulfilling career, and a husband who is kind and mild-mannered and incredibly handsome. And as Nate pulls the car onto the road and starts driving in the direction of the school, all I can think to myself is that I hope a truck blows through a stop sign, plows into the Honda, and kills us both instantly.

The Teacher (2024)

Her role reversals blur the clear distinction between predator and prey. Since everyone is ‘a bit twisted’, no one really is. Ultimately, this dilutes the concept of predation. And trivialises psychopathy.

“In 1833, Dr. James Prichard formulated an early version of what we now call psychopathy. He called it ‘moral insanity’. People diagnosed with moral insanity were thought to make bad moral judgments but had no defects in their intelligence or mental health. Psychopaths, too, are often clever and sane and are more likely to do things that are widely considered to be immoral.” (Source)

And contrary to popular belief, psychopaths are actually the ones who experience the strongest emotions (and are therefore a major source of fuel for the matrix). 

“These people generally have very high levels of frustration, internal anger and intense disgust, which drive them to behave in an aberrant manner,” explains Iso V. Sinclair. “They get a certain thrill from tormenting others. A psychopath becomes one as a result of multiple traumas, and their emotions are so intense that they dissociate and seek revenge. This reaction can be scientifically explained by a lack of mirror neurons, which, due to repressed emotions (often dating back to childhood), leads to a total lack of empathy.” (Source)

Read as You Are^†

Let’s take off our rose-coloured glasses: this simulation is a world of psychopaths and predators. Freida McFadden is simply pointing this out to us. And paradoxically, people keep coming back for more because they’re unaware of the source of their needs and desires, which, like their thoughts, come from outside themselves.

I believe that any human being is capable of terrible things if you push them hard enough.

Never Lie (2022)

Fiction, then, is not the problem. The problem is passive consumption. Consumed on autopilot, it becomes a form of mind-altering substance. Consumed with clear-eyed awareness, it becomes a mirror of astral mechanisms. 

Notes et références

• ^ A hint at McDonald's slogan “Come as you are”.

© La Pensine Mutine. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited.

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