FUTURE VOICE Magazine VI | Thought Reform
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Totalism & Brainwashing
Now that the thin cloak of sham democracy, which was thrown over many states of this earth, has disappeared into nothingness in the course of the declared pandemic (2020/21), the structures that really move our world are becoming more and more clearly recognisable.
In the process, one thing is becoming clearly apparent to many. The ruler on this planet is not the people's sovereign or common sense. It is not the will of a peace-loving human family on the path to a more evolved world that sets the pace here.
Rather, the narcissistic, destructive will of a small group of self-proclaimed ‘elites’ imposes itself on humanity – sometimes subversive, sometimes more obvious; and always with the obstinate tenor and subliminal threatening gesture: Whoever is not for us, is against us.
Despite all the education and the memorable events of the Nazi cult, which led millions of people into misery and death – repeatedly the majority of humanity gets caught in the net of the dark soul catchers and willingly sells out their own sovereignty and soul and that of their children for free on top.
And even if a few parameters change from time to time in the external structure – currently, everything must be adapted to a global radius of action – in essence, it is the tried and tested methods of manipulating human thought and action that always come into play.
The whole pandemic seems like a huge field experiment on the subject of thought reform – because they want to make us believe something, sell us a concept where the fish already stinks from the head, and they want to make us co-perpetrators or at least followers, or rather cult members.
Cults have initiation rites, and what some have in the form of a tattoo or branding, this one has in the form of an electromagnetic signature (implanted directly into the genetic code) which confirms your affiliation and (perhaps) saves you from being expelled from the pack. Playing with primal fears is also an important part of the manipulation portfolio.
Over the centuries, and especially in the 20th and 21st centuries, an infinite amount of research has been done on the subject of manipulating human consciousness; honourable ones that have sought to inform man, as well as criminal ones that served to enslave the human mind forever. The techniques of influence have become more and more perfidious and subliminal over time and are now supported by the most modern technology.
In order to illustrate which mechanisms are currently being implemented on a large scale and why the so-called pandemic is not primarily driven by experienced physicians, but by psychologists, we are dedicating this issue to the topic of Thought Reform.
We focus on two classic pillars of this very broad field of research – the work of Robert Jay Lifton, M.D., and Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D., two psychologists who have spent a lifetime working intensively on this topic.
Thought Reform
The concept of thought reform was developed by the American psychiatrist and author, Robert Jay Lifton, in the classic text, ‘Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of ‘Brainwashing’ in China’; first published in 1961.
In that study, he identified eight key features associated with thought reform methods that were used in totalitarian prisons to change the identity, beliefs, and attitudes of prisoners, bringing them into harmony with the pro-social ideals that were valued by authorities during the Maoist revolution.
Lifton was among the first to mention a comparison of totalistic treatment methods in the United States and methods of ideological totalism in China.
Ideological Totalism
Chinese Communist thought reform has a psychological momentum of its own, a self-perpetuating energy not always bound by the interests of the program’s directors. When we inquire into the sources of this momentum, we come upon a complex set of psychological themes, which may be grouped under the general heading of Ideological Totalism. By this ungainly phrase I mean to suggest the coming together of immoderate ideology with equally immoderate individual character traits – an extremist meeting ground between people and ideas. ...
And where totalism exists, a religion, a political movement, or even a scientific organization becomes little more than an exclusive cult.
A discussion of what is most central in the thought reform environment can thus lead us to a more general consideration of the psychology of human zealotry.
For in identifying, on the basis of this study of thought reform, features common to all expressions of ideological totalism, I wish to suggest a set of criteria against which any environment may be judged – a basis for answering the ever-recurring question: “Isn’t this just like ‚brainwashing’?”
These criteria consist of eight psychological themes which are predominant within the social field of the thought reform milieu. Each has a totalistic quality; each depends upon an equally absolute philosophical assumption; and each mobilizes certain individual emotional tendencies, mostly of a polarizing nature. Psychological theme, philosophical rationale, and polarized individual tendencies are interdependent; they require, rather than directly cause, each other.
In combination they create an atmosphere which may temporarily energize or exhilarate, but which at the same time poses the gravest of human threats.
Milieu Control
The most basic feature of the thought reform environment, the psychological current upon which all else depends, is the control of human communication.
Through this milieu control the totalist environment seeks to establish domain over not only the individual’s communication with the outside (all that he sees and hears, reads and writes, experiences, and expresses), but also – in its penetration of his inner life – over what we may speak of as his communication with himself. It creates an atmosphere uncomfortably reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984; but with one important difference.
Orwell, as a Westerner, envisioned milieu control accomplished by a mechanical device, the two-way ‘tele-screen’. The Chinese, although they utilize whatever technical means they have at their disposal, achieve control of greater psychological depth through a human recording and transmitting apparatus: ...
For they look upon milieu control as a just and necessary policy, one which need not be kept secret: thought reform participants may be in doubt as to who is telling what to whom, but the fact that extensive information about everyone is being conveyed to the authorities is always known.
At the center of this self-justification is their assumption of omniscience, their conviction that reality is their exclusive possession. Having experienced the impact of what they consider to be an ultimate truth (and having the need to dispel any possible inner doubts of their own), they consider it their duty to create an environment containing no more and no less than this ‘truth’.
In order to be the engineers of the human soul, they must first bring it under full observational control. …
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