Is BRAINWASHING Real?

Is BRAINWASHING Real?

Is brainwashing just a thing of the past? How was it invented and is it still used today? Have you been a victim of brainwashing? Where and why is it used? Most of all, is it even REAL?

WHAT IS BRAIN WASHING?

Brainwashing/Mind control is the successful control of the thoughts and actions of another without his or her consent. Generally, the term implies that the victim has given up some basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes, and has been made to accept contrasting ideas. 'Brainwashing' is often used loosely to refer to being persuaded by propaganda.

BUT I THOUGHT…

Using fear or force to manipulate or coerce people into doing what you want them to do should NOT be considered to be mind control. Inquisitions do not succeed in capturing the minds of their victims. As soon as the threat of punishment is lifted, the extorted beliefs vanish. You do not control the mind of someone who will escape from you the moment you turn your back.

To render a woman helpless by drugs so you can rape her is not mind control. Using a frequency generator to give people headaches or to disorient them is not the same as controlling them. You do not have control over a person's thoughts or actions just because you can do what you want to them or render them incapable of doing as they will. An essential component of mind control is that it involves controlling another person, not just putting them out of control or doing things to them over which they have no control.

WHEN WAS IT FIRST INVENTED?

There are many arguements over when and who invented the coined term "brainwashing". According to Jeffrey K. Hadden, the concept of "brainwashing" first came into public use during the Korean War in the 1950s as an explanation for why a few American GIs appeared to defect to the Communists. Brainwashing consisted of the notion that the Chinese communists had discovered a mysterious and effective method of causing deep and permanent behaviorial changes in prisoners of war.
See also Professor Hadden's online article, The Brainwashing Controversy.

I HAVE HEARD THAT CULTS USED THIS TECHNIQUE…

Brainwashing became a hot topic in the 1970s with the rise of religious cults such as the Hare Krishnas, the Moonies, and, more chillingly, the People's Temple--you know, Jim Jones, poisoned Kool-Aid, etc. Cultists sometimes did crazy things; obviously, alarmists argued, they'd been brainwashed. Calmer sorts eventually established that in most cults physical coercion, an essential element of brainwashing as commonly understood, was missing. If anyone was doing any brainwashing it was the deprogrammers hired by families to kidnap their cult-member relatives and hold them captive for days in an effort to knock some sense into them.

HAS THE U.S EVER REALLY TRIED TO USE BRAINWASHING?

One of the stranger aspects of the whole business was the attempt by the U.S. to develop its own behavior-control program. Fearful that it was falling behind in the brainwashing wars, the CIA starting in 1953 secretly funded a bizarre research effort known as MKULTRA--one initiative allegedly involved feeding LSD to a pre-hippie-era Timothy Leary and hundreds of others. After a congressional investigation in the 1970s headed by Senator Frank Church, the agency was ordered to halt drug experiments. Conspiracy buffs claim research on related techniques such as the ever-popular brain implants continues clandestinely, and I suppose one never knows. But the more likely story is that such programs were discontinued, not because anybody necessarily had moral scruples, but because the techniques under investigation just didn't work.

SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES AND MIND CONTROLL

One of the lesser myths about mind control is the notion that subliminal messages are effective controllers of behavior. Despite widespread belief in the power of subliminal advertising and messaging, the evidence of its significant effectiveness is based on anecdotes and unscientific studies by interested parties. You will search in vain for the scientific studies that demonstrate that playing inaudible messages such as "do not steal" or "put that back" in music significantly reduces employee or customer theft, or that subliminal messages increase sales of snacks at movie theaters.

THE GOVERNMENT AND MIND CONTROL

There also seems to be a growing belief that the U.S. government, through its military branches or agencies such as the CIA, is using a number of horrible devices aimed at disrupting the brain. Laser weapons, isotropic radiators, infrasound, non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse generators, and high-power microwave emitters have been mentioned. It is known that government agencies have experimented on humans in mind control studies with and without the knowledge of their subjects (Scheflin 1978). The claims of those who believe they have been unwilling victims of "mind control" experiments should not be dismissed as impossible or even as improbable. Given past practice and the amoral nature of our military and intelligence agencies, such experiments are not implausible. However, these experimental weapons, which are aimed at disrupting brain processes, should not be considered mind control weapons. To confuse, disorient or otherwise debilitate a person through chemicals or electronically, is not to control that person. To make a person lose control of himself is not the same as gaining control over him. It is a near certainty that our government is not capable of controlling anyone's mind, though it is clear that many people in many governments lust after such power.
In any case, some of the claims made by those who believe they are being controlled by these electronic weapons do not seem plausible. For example, the belief that radio waves or microwaves can be used to cause a person to hear voices transmitted to him seems unlikely. We know that radio waves and waves of all kinds of frequencies are constantly going through our bodies. The reason we have to turn on the radio or TV to hear the sounds or see the pictures being transmitted through the air is because those devices have receivers which "translate" the waves into forms we can hear and see. What we know about hearing and vision makes it very unlikely that simply sending a signal to the brain that can be "translated" into sounds or pictures would cause a person to hear or see anything. Someday it may be possible to stimulate electronically or chemically a specific network of neurons to cause specific sounds or sights of the experimenter’s choosing to emerge in a person's consciousness. But this is not possible today. Even if it were possible, it would not necessarily follow that a person would obey a command to assassinate the president just because he heard a voice telling him to do so. Hearing voices is one thing. Feeling compelled to obey them is quite another. Not everyone has the faith of Abraham.

There seem to be a number of parallels between those who think they have been abducted by aliens and those who believe their minds are being controlled by CIA implants. So far, however, the "mind-controlled group" has not been able to find their John Mack, the Harvard psychiatrist who claims that the best explanation for alien abduction claims is that they are based on alien abduction experiences, not fantasies or delusions. A common complaint from the mind-controlled is that they can't get therapists to take them seriously. That is, they say they can only find therapists who want to treat them for their delusions, not help them prove they're being controlled by their government. Thus, it is not likely that the "mind-controlled CIA zombies" will be accused of having delusions planted in them by therapists, as alien abductees have, since they claim they cannot get therapists to take their delusions seriously. In fact, many of them are convinced that their treatment as deluded persons is part of a conspiracy to cover-up the mind control experiments done on them. Some even believe that False Memory Syndrome is part of the conspiracy. They claim that the idea of false memories is a plot to keep people from taking seriously the claims of those who are now remembering that they were victims of mind control experiments at some time in the past. It is hard to believe that they cannot find a wide array of incompetent New Age therapists willing to take their claims seriously, if not willing to claim they have been victims of such experiments themselves.

MY OPINION: