Within 12 hours, I heard the term “psychohistory” used in two very different contexts, which sent me down a rabbit hole to investigate what this term actually means as well as how it has changed over time and how it is shaping our current discourse in religion and politics and society in general.
First, I was watching the season 3 opener of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, a series based on his science fiction books. These books, published from 1942-1950 are widely considered the basis of all modern science fiction, including Star Wars, Star Trek, and the rest. You can recognize not only the themes (empire, artificial life, world-building), but even characters (a Han Solo prototype made an appearance last night, for example). In the series, historian / mathematician Harry Seldon predicts the downfall of the empire using what he terms “psychohistory” that tracks social patterns to predict future events. Harry Seldon is viewed as a prophet of sorts, but he has not shaped the future he predicts; he is only looking at the data and showing why the future is inevitable. In modern parlance, he is using what we might call meta-data to determine social and economic movements.
The second place I heard the term was in a podcast discussion between Steve Hassan and his guest Dr. Rebecca Lernov (professor of history and science at Harvard). They were talking about the writings of Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, an American psychiatrist who studied the psychological effects of extreme historical events and political violence which makes him a pioneer in the field of psychohistory. He characterizes psychohistory as a means to explore the experiences of individuals caught in historical “storms.” Examples of these types of mass psychological traumas include the Holocaust, Hiroshima, the Vietnam War, and most recently the pandemic. It feels likely that the political upheaval and violence of the Trump presidencies could also fall into this bucket. Reaching back further in time, other events would include things like the black death, the London fire of 1666, the French and Russian revolutions, the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, and many more historical events. The gist of this is that we exist within a social state of “psychological weather,” and that milieu affects our mental state both as a society and as individuals.
The podcast veered into explaining how political propaganda and social media have been used to control and radicalize individuals in society, leading to further extremism, conspiracy theories and violence by members of the polarized groups. With Hassan’s background in cults and brainwashing, he is always focused on exposing efforts by those in power to control the thinking and choices of individuals. As he explains, humans are primarily social, emotional creatures who like to rationalize, not the logical, rational thinkers we imagine ourselves to be. This makes us extremely vulnerable to emotional manipulation, primarily through social pressure. He refers to these as brainwashing tactics used by cults and applies the term cult to any groups (political or religious) that seek to control the choices of individuals.
This interview also made me think of Jung’s explanations of the collective unconscious–the shared archetypes that drive culture and can be revealed through things like dreams, slogans, and storytelling. While he was describing how humans find meaning and think alike across all human society and culture, he was not advocating manipulating people using these symbols.
AI is fairly good at creating tables that explain these broader concepts and comparing them, so here goes:
| Dimension | Asimov’s Psychohistory | Academic Psychohistory (Historians) | Cult / Brainwashing Studies | Jung’s Collective Unconscious |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core Idea | Human societies follow predictable statistical patterns. | History can be explained by mass psychology & childrearing practices. | Individuals can be systematically influenced through group dynamics & authority. | All humans share universal archetypes that shape myths, dreams, and behaviors. |
| Focus | Galactic-scale societies & long-term predictions. | Historical events, leaders, and cycles of trauma. | Small-group manipulation and social influence. | Symbolic/mythic layer of the psyche expressed across cultures. |
| Method | Mathematics + statistics + sociology. | Psychoanalysis + historical research. | Psychology (thought reform models, social influence, cognitive dissonance). | Analytical psychology, dream interpretation, mythological comparison. |
| View of the Individual | Unpredictable on their own, but predictable in large numbers. | Shaped by family upbringing, trauma, and unconscious drives. | Vulnerable to manipulation, especially under isolation or stress. | Carrier of archetypes; individual psyche linked to a collective substratum. |
| Strength | Elegant, predictive model for mass behavior. | Explains patterns across generations and nations. | Explains cult conversion, obedience, and radicalization. | Explains cross-cultural myths and shared symbols of meaning. |
| Weakness | Purely fictional; assumes determinism & ignores free will. | Often speculative and unprovable. | Controversial; some argue “brainwashing” is overstated. | Hard to empirically verify; leans symbolic rather than scientific. |
| View of Society | A system governed by statistical laws. | A product of mass psychology and recurring trauma cycles. | Groups can control individuals through systematic influence. | Collective symbols drive culture, religion, and myth. |
| End Goal | Use prediction to shorten a coming dark age. | Explain why societies repeat destructive patterns. | Protect people from coercive influence; expose manipulation. | Help individuals integrate unconscious archetypes for wholeness. |
In simpler terms, Asimov dreamed of physics for history. Historians tried to psychoanalyze history itself. Cult scholars mapped out real-time manipulation. Jung revealed the mythic software running in the background.
What Asimov only dreamed about in the 1940s is a reality today. Governments and corporations (including the Mormon church) use powerful statistical models to anticipate human behavior on a societal level, but it goes even further. Books like Nudge show how very slight shifts in messaging can shape the outcomes to those desired. We see this in advertising, but it is also being efforts to use manipulative and misinformation through social media to alter perceptions that lead to different political outcomes. And obviously, bad actors like Russia are using bots to influence elections and culture in other countries. Bad actors like Musk and Zuckerberg also put their own thumb on the scale in how they do push notifications, recommendations, and the algorithm behind your feed. We are all watching it all the time, remarking on the changes to each other as we observe them.
Historical trauma is revealed in how nations craft policies through laws, reparations, and remembrance (monuments and holidays). For example, German education requires a full, honest accounting of the Holocaust. Because governments control education, they can choose to educate and take accountability or they can use propaganda to alter the way history is told. History can be honest or whitewashed or more likely, something in between. It is devised by those who are in charge. It’s one reason that the current administration is targeting the public education system and higher education in the US. If you can change the narrative that the citizens are taught, you change what they know, who the good guys and bad guys are, and what the policies are that they desire and will accept.
Brainwashing tactics that used to be done by charismatic leaders no longer require a human leader to accomplish the same thing; the algorithm is more than capable to twist beliefs using social isolation (echo chambers), repetition (memes), and create subcultures of like-minded people who radicalize each other. These algorithms and leaders tap into and use the archetypes described by Jung that speak deeply to the human psyche: redeemers or hero mythology, strongman leader, the shadowy enemy, etc.
These same approaches can be used to soften polarization or they can cynically be used to sow division and create extremism. They can completely alter worldviews and belief systems.
- Do you see evidence of recent traumatic events having altered how people understand the world? Have you seen this among older people related to traumatic world events they survived?
- How do you see the traumas in Mormonism’s past (e.g. expulsion to Utah, Mountain Meadows Massacre, polygamy) as influencing the development of Mormon culture and belief systems?
- Is psychohistory valid or do you think these efforts are unprovable? Why or why not?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
Three cheers for Foundation. I read the books as a kid but have not seen the Apple TV series. That version of “psychohistory,” like all models for predicting the future, is unreliable. The future largely defies prediction, whatever model or method is used. The future, like Mr. Baggins, is full of surprises. I suppose there is a post begging to be composed on this theme: “Why prophecy does such a poor job of predicting the future.”
As for academic psychohistory, before Nudge there was Brodie. She practiced a narrower scope of psychohistory, what was also termed “psychobiography.” She took the psychological features of a subject’s upbringing and early experience and applied it to enhancing the understanding of their later life and achievements or failures. Her best known subjects were Joseph Smith and Thomas Jefferson. Her work was and is controversial.
Nudge (who I haven’t read, just riffing on your comments) appears to take history and large-scale traumatic historical events and look at how it affects individual psychology and formation. Brodie went the other way, looking at how an individual’s psychological makeup influenced their later life and behavior. Maybe both have a degree of relevance. Yes, I think Mormon historical traumas have influenced how Mormons, as individuals, and the Church, as an institution, think and behave. For example, we always think we are persecuted. But psychohistory of either type is only as valid or useful as the psychological model a historian uses, and psychological models are notoriously unreliable.
I got hung up on your discussion of is psychohistory valid and provable. I had a favorite psychology professor who would have yelled at you for the very idea that psychology should be evaluated by “provable”. He said the better question is, is psychology useful? Psychology is science, more especially a soft squishy science and science has “theories” that are very useful as a way to understand the world, but as theories, they are not measured in how provable they are, but how useful they are. All of psychology is based in theories and unprovable, and most of history is unprovable, so combine them into psychohistory and you got nothing but theories that are predictive and useful, but not provable. There can be lots of evidence for theories, like gravity, they can be very useful ways of looking at the world with lots of evidence that the theory works, even if it is unprovable. Now, as to validity, well, psychology can be useful and predictive, like I said, but it is still just a collection of very interesting theories. Psychological theories are even less provable than scientific theories because psychology is a soft science. Just like the theory of evolution, there can be lots of evidence, and the theory can be predict stuff that might happen, but the probability of that prediction is not a certainty as in hard sciences. So, no, psychohistory is not “provable” but that is a bad question for a collection of theories. Is it useful? Yes. Is it predictive? Yes? Does it explain things about how the world works? Yes.
Now, having said that, just like psychology has had some theories that turn out not useful, (some of Freud’s were not really useful or predictive and have been rejected) so will psychohistory. So, it is kind of a new science. Give it time and let it make its mistakes before anyone is allowed to chisel it in concrete. And don’t reject it as bunk just because new theories can challenge old assumptions.
As Dave B warns, psychological theories have a poor track record as far as predictions go. There are just too many variables and it is impossible to pin them all down. So, will psychohistory predict the future? No, but it may give us useful warnings. It may give us probabilities and help us steer toward better outcomes. So, while Dave has his point, the real question of “is it useful?” Does not depend on absolute prediction of outcomes. Just like psychology helps schools identify at risk or learning disabled children and help guide them toward better outcomes, so can psychohistory. Don’t write it off as not useful because there are too many variables for absolute certainty. We can’t prove evolution, and the theory doesn’t not give an absolute prediction about how well species will adapt or go extinct due to global warming. But that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be studied or that we use it to try to attain a better outcome.
Funny, didn’t know about the series as I don’t own a TV but I’m reading the Robot trilogy now. Asimov wasn’t a very good writer but he was a great storyteller. Jehosophat!
vajra2: It’s weird how long ago he wrote these books. I also read (well, listened to on audiobook) E.M. Forster’s book The Machine Stops. He’s the author of Room with a View and Howards End, and the tech crisis of his time was basically the expansion of the railroad. This book was published 115 years ago! While I can’t say it was my favorite sci-fi reading ever (although Forster’s other novels are among my personal favorites), the world he creates is extremely familiar to today, particularly since the pandemic lockdowns. He describes a world in which people are socially isolated, fearful of human contact (even with relatives), and dependent on technology for instant gratification and convenience in their homes. They lose their humanity and experience loneliness without a means to remedy it. Rather than an increase of independence and control, this leads to a loss of autonomy and joy in life. It leads to loss of critical thinking as people over-rely on technology to cater to their whims (food and goods delivered to them without human contact).
I would recommend giving Foundation a watch. It’s got some interesting ideas. Psychohistory felt kind of like a silly concept to me for the reasons others have described (the variables involved make it impractical to predict the future–although the series does deal with this in a general way, saying these are trends without fixed dates or events). Of course, it’s no more or less silly than the idea that you can somehow manipulate multiple universes with just one minor change.
There are two concepts the series explores that I find even more interesting: 1) robot / AI humanity, and 2) the method for governance that they create in which there is a single demagogue who is cloned in perpetuity to lead forever (named Empire). Empire (clones of Cleon I) rule in a tripartate government in which Cleon clones of three different ages rule together: a child/teen/young adult (0-30 years old named Brother Dawn), a 30-60 year old (named Brother Day), and a fully mature 60-90 year old (named Brother Dusk). At the age of 90, Brother Dusk’s life ends and everyone is promoted up an age while a new clone takes the role of Brother Dawn. It’s an interesting concept. The older clones mentor the younger, but the younger have their own ideas. The older are often very ambitious and devious as well.
I came back to H. Beam Piper’s work from the 1950’s recently. This post and related conversational chains remind me of some of the themes in his stories combining science (and AI to a degree), psychology, and history. The short story “Oomphel in the Sky” is the example that comes to my mind.