Eric Clapton's COVID Theory: Vaccinated People Are "Under Hypnosis"

Eric Clapton’s conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 vaccine have only grown crazier and crazier, and the latest is a doozy: in a new interview on the Real Music Observer YouTube channel — which frequently posts anti-vax videos — the guitarist claims that people who have gotten vaccinated were coerced into doing so through subliminal messages meant to hypnotize them.

Clapton cited a controversial theory (which has, of course, been debunked) by clinical psychology professor Mattias Desmet that claims we’re all suffering from “mass formation hypnosis” and that people only get vaccinated because they’ve been hypnotized through “subliminal advertising.” He also reiterated his regret over receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine: “I should never have gone near the needle,” he said. “But the propaganda said the vaccine was safe for everyone.”

The musician added that he was initially “mystified” by the negative reactions his anti-vax beliefs received from fans, friends and even family members, but he eventually came to the conclusion that their resistance was due to the fact that they’d all been hypnotized or brainwashed by subliminal messages. (The things people will tell themselves to avoid admitting they’re wrong!)

“I could see it then — once I kind of started to look for it, I saw it everywhere … Then I remembered seeing little things on YouTube which were like subliminal advertising; it had been going on for a long time — that thing about ‘you will own nothing and you will be happy,’” Clapton said. “And I thought, ‘What’s that mean?’”

“And bit by bit, I put a rough kind of jigsaw puzzle together, and that made me even more resolute,” he continued. “And so I went from that to looking at the news stuff that was coming out in England and the U.K. We have BBC, and it used to be an impartial commentary on world affairs and state affairs. And suddenly it was completely one-way traffic about following orders and obedience.”

Of course, for the billionth time, all of this is insane, dangerous misinformation, and the COVID-19 vaccine has repeatedly been proven to be safe and effective. People elect to get it not because they’ve been hypnotized, but because they care about the health and safety of their fellow human beings and would like to limit their risk of contracting the virus and spreading it to someone else.