Maslow and His Unclimbable Pyramid

Todd Hayen

Everyone knows Maslow and his pyramid of needs, right? Don’t feel bad if you don’t; it is just one of those psychological concepts psychologists like to come up with to illustrate explanations of the weird human mind.

Not to diss Maslow, he was pretty cool. And a lot of these guys (and gals) were rather brilliant in what they came up with. I only know who Maslow was because I had to study him in therapy school.

Here’s the skinny on Maslow—courtesy of Wikipedia:

“Abraham Harold Maslow (/ˈmæzloʊ/; April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970) was an American psychologist who created Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization. Maslow was a psychology professor at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research, and Columbia University. He stressed the importance of focusing on the positive qualities in people, as opposed to treating them as a “bag of symptoms”. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Maslow as the tenth most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

“Bag of symptoms”? I like him already. Anyway, I will focus on his famous “Pyramid of Needs” for this article.

Let’s take a look at it.

As the diagram illustrates, Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs is in a pyramid shape. The shape is divided into five levels. The first, base, level is described as “physiological needs.” This is where food, water, shelter, clothing, breathing, etc. are sought as a “need.” A large portion of people on earth have satisfied this level, but of course, many have not. Certainly, in North America, most have moved to the second level.

Here we find “safety and security.” This is the level of need that includes health, employment, property, family, and security. I am proposing that we are essentially stuck at this level, and this is the level that the agenda is primarily focused on keeping us. I will come back to this after going through the other levels.

Next up is “love and belonging.” You would think that most of the developed world would be here. This is where relationships become the priority—romance, friendship, family, children, intimacy, and most importantly, a sense of connection. Although the culture struggles to reach this level, the agenda puts forth most of its effort to push us back down into Level 2. Level 3 is dangerous to the agenda, it is where humans begin to function as humans, and not as consumer machines.

Level 4 very few of us are engaged with. This is the level of “self-esteem.” Here we focus on confidence, personal achievement, and most importantly, the need to be a unique individual. Of course, the agenda will do everything in its power to keep us from spending any time here at all.

The last level (5) is “self-actualization” which encompasses the need for a sense of morality, creativity, spontaneity, purpose, meaning, and inner potential. How many of us are at this elusive level? How many sheep are here? This level, according to the agenda, must be avoided at all costs. Spirituality, religion, and deep insight are all major taboos to the agenda whose primary aim is the complete acquiescence of the masses. Their goal, of course, is total control. They wish to be the “god,” the “religion” and the “spiritual center” of everyone’s universe. One way to accomplish this is through the conversion of science to a religion—scientism—and to make the purpose and meaning of life, consumption—consumerism.

Let’s go back to Level 2 for a moment. I had forgotten after the many years that have passed since I studied Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs as a student that this level consists of the need for security. Here is a quote from the website “Simply Psychology” that sheds a bit more light on this concept:

“Safety needs can be fulfilled by the family and society (e.g., police, schools, business, and medical care). For example, emotional security, financial security (e.g., employment, social welfare), law and order, freedom from fear, social stability, property, health, and wellbeing (e.g., safety against accidents and injury).”

I found this intriguing after my recent revisit to Maslow’s concepts. “Police, schools, business, and medical care,” not to mention “government” are primary “need fulfillment” sources in Level 2. It all started to make sense why the agenda must make every effort to keep us all as deeply ensconced in Level 2 as possible. Fearmongering, consumerism, and medical dependence are all essential elements to keep us from passing through this level onto the higher levels of individuation and self-actualization.

Just about everything that is happening in the world today seems designed to keep us at Level 2. The dangers, to the agenda, of Levels 3, 4 and 5 are simply unacceptable to them.

Keeping us all in a state of perpetual fear is one of the key strategies for ensuring that security is just beyond reach. I don’t have to describe how that tactic has been utilized and is continuing to be utilized, for decades. There is a direct infusion of fear as we saw during the first months (years actually) of the Covid nonsense. Then there is the medical fear that is continually thrown at us day in and day out—fear of cancer, fear of heart disease, fear of mental illness, fear of sugar, fear of cholesterol, fear of this and fear of that. The entire medical industry is dependent on fostering fear, and then offering a “solution” for what we are afraid of (which, more often than not, entails more drugs, and more treatments to treat the side effects of the original treatment).

Then there is the general fear of life itself, fear of financial disaster, fear of terrorism, fear of natural disaster, fear of fires, fear of earthquakes, fear of flooding, fear of tropical storms, fear of climate warming (the Grandaddy of all fears).

So, it is clear that inciting fear is a very powerful method to keep a sense of security at bay. Therefore, we stay at Level 2, and as Maslow said, we cannot comfortably move to the next level until the needs of the lower level we occupy are met.

Fear isn’t the only tactic at the disposal of the agenda; there are others, such as keeping the culture at a constant level of overwhelming consumption of “things”—thus creating a sense of worth only through consumption and acquisition. Dependence on cell phones, video games, drugs (alcohol and marijuana in particular), pornography, and, of course, dependence on the government itself. All these dependencies can be manipulated from the top. They can be taken away, or the need for them increased, whatever is necessary to keep us feeling insecure, thus the needs of Level 2 are never met.

Take a closer look at the levels above Level 2. The next one is a connection with other human beings. See how the agenda has done its darndest to keep us from filling those needs? Love of family, of each other, deep sexual intimacy that only comes through meaningful encounters with the object of one’s sexual orientation (how many of you know that transsexualism is not about sexual intimacy?) are all needs of Level 3. It is clear the agenda does not want us venturing into Level 3, let alone Levels 4 and 5. If we do, we might actually start functioning like human beings, and it is quite clear no one in the elite class wants that.

Todd Hayen is a registered psychotherapist practicing in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He holds a PhD in depth psychotherapy and an MA in Consciousness Studies. He specializes in Jungian, archetypal, psychology. Todd also writes for his own substack, which you can read here