Overview

Schwartz’s work on consciousness and policy represents a departure from conventional parapsychology toward applied consciousness studies in the social and political domain. Rather than laboratory experiments on psi phenomena, he examines how shifts in collective consciousness (measurable through demographic, epidemiological, and political data) correlate with and predict societal outcomes in health, governance, and survival.

His framework rests on the premise that consciousness is not merely individual psychology but a collective phenomenon with real-world policy consequences. He argues that the United States faces multiple intersecting crises (healthcare collapse, democratic erosion, climate denial, and political violence) all traceable to a fundamental shift in the nation’s collective consciousness away from cooperation, evidence-based reasoning, and concern for collective wellbeing toward fragmentation, ideological rigidity, and zero-sum competition.⁶

Schwartz has published extensively in EXPLORE: The Journal of Science and Healing, developing a body of work that treats consciousness as a variable in public policy analysis. His approach combines trend analysis, demographic data, and what he terms “precognitive” patterns, the idea that societies unconsciously sense approaching crises before conscious recognition occurs.

Consciousness as a policy variable

Central to Schwartz’s thesis is the claim that consciousness (understood as collective awareness, values, and decision-making patterns) can be operationalized as a measurable variable in policy outcomes. He proposes that national wellness is not determined by wealth alone but by the alignment between a society’s consciousness (its values and priorities) and its institutional structures.¹

Schwartz argues that consciousness operates at multiple scales: individual psychology, institutional culture, and collective societal patterns. When these align toward shared wellbeing, outcomes improve across health, education, and social stability. When consciousness fragments into competing ideologies with incompatible worldviews, institutional dysfunction and population harm follow.⁷

He has examined this framework through comparative analysis, notably contrasting the United States with Norway. Despite similar wealth levels, Norway’s consciousness, reflected in policy priorities emphasizing universal healthcare, education, and social cohesion, produces dramatically superior health outcomes, life expectancy, and social stability.² Schwartz frames this not as a simple economic question but as a consciousness question: what does a society collectively value, and how do those values shape institutional design?

Schwartz has also examined the role of information environments in shaping consciousness. He argues that the weaponization of lies (the deliberate distortion of factual reality for political gain) represents a fundamental attack on collective consciousness, fragmenting shared reality and enabling institutional capture by actors indifferent to population wellbeing.⁸

Healthcare systems and collective consciousness

Schwartz’s most sustained focus has been on the relationship between collective consciousness and healthcare outcomes. He argues that the American healthcare system reflects a consciousness oriented toward profit extraction rather than healing, what he terms the “illness profit system.”⁹ This consciousness shapes every institutional choice: drug pricing, insurance design, physician autonomy, and research priorities.

He documents how this consciousness produces measurable harms: preventable deaths, medical bankruptcy, maternal mortality, and childhood suffering. Schwartz argues that these outcomes are not accidental but reflect the system’s actual design priorities, profit maximization rather than population health.¹⁰

Schwartz has examined specific crises through this lens. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he analyzed how fragmented consciousness (political denial, conspiracy theories, and institutional failure) transformed a manageable public health challenge into a mass casualty event.¹¹ He argued that the pandemic revealed the consciousness underlying American institutions: a willingness to sacrifice vulnerable populations for economic and political advantage.

He has also examined healthcare’s intersection with gender and regional politics. Following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, Schwartz documented how the reversal of abortion rights reflected and accelerated a consciousness shift toward state control of reproduction, with cascading effects on women’s health outcomes and life expectancy.¹²¹³

More broadly, Schwartz argues that healthcare cannot be separated from consciousness about what populations deserve to live. When consciousness shifts toward devaluing certain groups (the poor, racial minorities, the disabled) healthcare systems reflect that devaluation through resource allocation and institutional neglect.¹⁴

Democracy, authoritarianism, and consciousness

Schwartz has developed an analysis of democratic decline as a consciousness phenomenon. He argues that American democracy faces not merely political challenges but a fundamental shift in collective consciousness away from democratic values, pluralism, evidence-based reasoning, peaceful power transfer, and concern for minority rights, toward authoritarianism, zero-sum competition, and dehumanization of political opponents.³

He identifies what he calls the “Great Schism”, a deepening consciousness divide between regions and political communities in the United States, with measurable effects on life expectancy, healthcare access, and institutional function.⁴ This schism reflects incompatible worldviews about basic facts, values, and the purpose of government. When consciousness becomes this fragmented, democratic institutions (which require shared reality and mutual respect) cannot function.

Schwartz has examined specific manifestations of this consciousness shift: the rise of political violence, the embrace of conspiracy theories, and the weaponization of lies in electoral politics.⁸ He argues these are not aberrations but expressions of a consciousness that has abandoned democratic norms in pursuit of power.

He has also analyzed the psychology of exploitation, examining how consciousness can be deliberately manipulated to serve authoritarian ends. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he documented how public health measures were politicized and exploited to deepen consciousness fragmentation, with fatal consequences.¹¹

Schwartz’s analysis suggests that democratic survival depends on consciousness recovery, a collective reorientation toward shared reality, evidence-based reasoning, and commitment to mutual wellbeing. Without such a shift, he argues, democratic institutions will continue to erode.⁶

Climate, migration, and existential precognition

Schwartz has extended his consciousness framework to existential risks, particularly climate change. He argues that climate change represents a form of collective precognition, societies unconsciously recognize the existential threat but fail to consciously acknowledge or act on that knowledge.⁵ This precognitive awareness manifests as anxiety, denial, scapegoating, and institutional paralysis.

He documents how consciousness about climate change has been deliberately distorted through disinformation campaigns, creating a false debate about scientific reality. This consciousness manipulation prevents the policy action necessary for survival.¹⁵ Schwartz argues that willful ignorance about climate change reflects a consciousness choice, a decision to prioritize short-term economic interests over long-term survival.

Schwartz has examined the cascading effects of climate change on migration, healthcare, and social stability. As climate disruption drives migration, societies face consciousness choices about how to respond: with compassion and integration or with xenophobia and exclusion.¹⁶ He argues that the rise of white supremacist consciousness in the United States reflects, in part, an unconscious response to climate-driven demographic change.¹⁷

He has also examined food and water insecurity as consciousness issues. As climate change disrupts agricultural systems and water availability, societies must consciously choose whether to prioritize equitable access or allow market mechanisms to allocate scarcity to the wealthy.¹⁸ Current trajectories suggest consciousness is shifting toward the latter, with catastrophic implications for vulnerable populations.

Schwartz’s analysis of existential risk suggests that consciousness change is not merely desirable but necessary for species survival. Societies that fail to shift consciousness toward long-term thinking and collective wellbeing will not survive the challenges ahead.¹⁹

Methodology and measurement

Schwartz’s approach to consciousness and policy relies primarily on trend analysis, demographic data, and comparative institutional analysis rather than laboratory experimentation. He examines published epidemiological data, mortality statistics, healthcare access metrics, and democratic indicators to document correlations between consciousness (inferred from policy choices and institutional structures) and measurable outcomes.

His methodology involves identifying consciousness patterns through policy analysis. For example, he infers consciousness about children’s welfare by examining child mortality rates, gun deaths among children, food insecurity, and educational investment.²⁰²¹ When these metrics decline, he argues, it reflects a consciousness shift away from valuing children’s lives.

Schwartz also employs comparative analysis, examining how different societies with similar resources produce different outcomes. The contrast between the United States and Norway exemplifies this approach: identical wealth levels produce vastly different health and wellbeing outcomes, suggesting consciousness (reflected in policy priorities) rather than resources determines outcomes.²²

His analysis of precognition operates differently. Rather than predicting specific events, Schwartz argues that societies exhibit precognitive awareness of approaching crises through anxiety, denial, and scapegoating behaviors. Climate change denial, for instance, represents a consciousness response to precognitive awareness of existential threat.⁵ This framework treats precognition not as paranormal but as a normal feature of consciousness operating at the collective level.

Schwartz acknowledges that his methodology differs from conventional scientific practice. His work is interpretive and synthetic rather than experimental. He argues, however, that the scale of the phenomena he examines (national health systems, democratic institutions, existential risks) makes laboratory methodology inappropriate. Understanding consciousness at the societal level requires examining real-world outcomes at population scale.