Chapter II. The Axis of Thought: From Mysticism to Structural Empiricism

Human beings cannot exist without frameworks of understanding. Every society, every individual, organizes the chaos of experience into systems of thought—sometimes inherited, sometimes improvised, sometimes tested. Yet not all systems are equal in their capacity to grasp reality, especially in times of conflict.

To make sense of war, propaganda, and power, we must recognize that thought exists along an axis, from mysticism on one end to structural empiricism on the other. Each position offers different strengths, vulnerabilities, and susceptibilities to control.

Mysticism

At the farthest end lies mysticism: visions, revelations, intuition, myths. These modes can provide meaning, solace, and identity, but they are not tools for parsing the real behavior of autocrats or for anticipating strategic gambits.

Mystical analysis of Trump or Putin is bound to fail because magical thinking opens onto a massive state-space. There are infinite possible interpretations, but no mechanism for testing one against another. In that infinity, it is nearly impossible to land upon the true state of affairs.

Mysticism may enrich life, but as an analytic tool of war it is impotent.

Tradition

Moving along the axis, we encounter tradition—beliefs and practices inherited from family or culture. Tradition provides continuity and cohesion, but it is “imported thought”: ideas accepted because they were given, not because they were tested.

When applied to politics or strategy, tradition often becomes deference to authority or nostalgia for past orders. It offers stability but also susceptibility, because unexamined inheritance can be exploited by those who position themselves as guardians of “heritage.”

Language Bias

Even those who believe themselves free of bias remain vulnerable to the deeper structures of language itself. Words carry frames, metaphors encode assumptions, grammar patterns nudge interpretation.

To speak of “peacekeeping operations” instead of invasions, or “special military operations” instead of wars, is to let language itself warp perception.

Analysts must recognize that bias can enter not only through culture or tradition but through the very vocabulary with which problems are described. To ignore this is to leave the web of truth open to distortion at its foundation.

Pseudoscience

Beyond language bias lies the realm of pseudoscience—systems that mimic the surface of analysis without its substance. UFO-ology, astrology, scientology: all borrow the trappings of systematization while avoiding the discipline of testing.

They generate certainty without falsifiability, which makes them compelling but dangerous.

In political analysis, pseudoscientific thinking translates into conspiracy theories: complete, self-sealed explanations that adapt to every disconfirmation.

For propagandists, this is fertile ground—an audience trained to mistake coherence for truth.

Ideology

Ideology occupies a middle tier. It is more structured than mysticism or pseudoscience, but it is still selective. It orders facts according to loyalty and identity.

Ideology can mobilize, unify, and inspire, but it is brittle: when facts contradict it, the ideology bends the facts rather than adjust itself.

War actors thrive on this brittleness.

By offering slogans and enemies, they provide citizens with a ready-made interpretive filter that relieves them of the burden of independent thought.

Scientism

Next comes scientism, a distortion of science that embraces data while discarding mechanism or critical testing. Scientism uses numbers, charts, and jargon to create the impression of rigor without the reality of explanation. It cloaks power in technocratic certainty.

Governments and corporations use scientism to sell policies as “evidence-based” even when the evidence is cherry-picked or disconnected from causal mechanisms.

It is not science but theater. As such, it is useful for social control.

Pop-Analysis

Adjacent to scientism is pop-analysis: event-by-event commentary that interprets headlines but does not build coherent frameworks. Pop-analysis may educate or entertain, but it lacks predictive power. It reacts rather than explains.

Commentators lurch from scandal to scandal, unable to connect them into a durable web of truth. In this mode, even talented analysts remain captives of the news cycle, which itself is shaped by elites and propagandists.

Realism

Higher on the axis sits realism, in both its political and philosophical forms. Realism recognizes structures and patterns—states act in pursuit of power, theories should preserve observed relations.

It provides more explanatory power than mysticism, ideology, or pop-analysis.

Yet realism alone is insufficient, because it often neglects data or mechanism. It can tell us what tends to happen, but not always why.

Without mechanism, realism risks fatalism: a sense that structures dictate outcomes, leaving analysts blind to innovation, deception, or asymmetric moves.

Structural Empiricism

At the apex is structural empiricism. Here data and mechanism are held together: evidence is tested against null hypotheses, and causal explanations are proposed and refined.

Structural empiricism is not satisfied with correlation alone; it asks what mechanism makes the correlation real. It is not content with mechanism alone; it demands evidence that the mechanism actually manifests in the world.

This is the scientific habit: to test, to falsify, to explain, and to predict.

Structural empiricism provides the only framework resilient enough to withstand propaganda. Mysticism can be manipulated by charisma, tradition by nostalgia, ideology by loyalty, scientism by technocratic posturing, pop-analysis by noise, realism by fatalism.

Only structural empiricism arms us with the discipline to ask: does the data fit? Can the null hypothesis be rejected? Does the mechanism explain not only what has happened but what is likely to happen next?

Susceptibility Across the Axis

Each layer of thought offers a different vulnerability to control. Mysticism is vulnerable to charismatic authority; tradition to appeals to heritage; language bias to framing; pseudoscience to conspiracy; ideology to loyalty tests; scientism to false expertise; pop-analysis to distraction; realism to determinism.

Structural empiricism alone provides a frame in which propaganda can be resisted, because it anchors claims to both data and mechanism, and demands that explanations survive contact with future events.

---

https://bsky.app/profile/johnrraymond.bsky.social