
The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing (1956) - Oatseller
https://archive.org/stream/RapeOfTheMind-ThePsychologyOfThoughtControl-A.m.MeerlooMd/RapeOfTheMind-ThePsychologyOfThoughtControl-A.m.MeerlooMd_djvu.txt
======
enodios
Just skimmed through a bit, but I found this particular part comparing modern
hyper-communicative society to mental attacks to be interesting

 _These subtle menticidal forces operate both within the mind and outside it.
They have been strengthened in their effect by the growth in complexity of our
civilization. The modern means of mass communication bring the entire world
daily into each man 's home; the techniques of propaganda and salesmanship
have been refined and systematized; there is scarcely any hiding place from
the constant visual and verbal assault on the mind. The pressures of daily
life impel more and more people to seek an easy escape from responsibility and
maturity. Indeed, it is difficult to withstand these pressures; to many the
offer of a political panacea is very tempting, to others the offer of escape
through alcohol, drugs, or other artificial pleasures is irresistible.

Free men in a free society must learn not only to recognize this stealthy
attack on mental integrity and fight it, but must learn also what there is in
side man's mind that makes him vulnerable to this attack, what it is that
makes him, in many cases, actually long for a way out of the responsibilities
that republican democracy and maturity place on him. _

~~~
Oatseller
Another interesting quote on his Wikipedia page [0]

"And yet one day men will have to grow up. Compared with the long ages of
human existence on earth, our civilization is in its infancy. Sooner or later
we must be ready to leave the dreamland of childhood, where imagination finds
unlimited scope, and take our place in a world of limited freedoms. That world
however, can in the long run give us something better than any vision conjured
up in childhood." – Total War and the Human Mind, 1944.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joost_Meerloo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joost_Meerloo)

------
jmnicolas
When I see the length of some of the articles featured on HN, I start to think
that HN is just a giant conspiracy to stop me from getting anything done ;-)

~~~
ableal
The more dastardly conspirators upvote you, for obvious reasons.

~~~
jmnicolas
Hey thanks I learned a new English word (I'm French).

I thought you wanted to wright "bastardly" at first ;-)

------
m777z
Interestingly, although Meerloo seems to think that the Reichstag fire was a
Nazi plot, the Wikipedia article on the incident
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire))
makes it sound like the current consensus is that Van der Lubbe set the fire
after all.

~~~
PavlovsCat
> makes it sound like the current consensus is that Van der Lubbe set the fire
> after all.

Does it?

> The responsibility for the Reichstag fire remains an ongoing topic of debate
> and research.

The German one is not quite so sure either:
[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstagsbrand](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstagsbrand)

> Marinus van der Lubbe was arrested at the scene. However, the circumstances
> and especially who did it could never be cleared up without doubt, and are
> still an object of controversy today.

~~~
antientropic
The English wikipedia article also says: "According to Ian Kershaw, writing in
1998, the consensus of nearly all historians is that Van der Lubbe did set the
Reichstag on fire. Although Van der Lubbe was certainly an arsonist and
clearly played a role, there has been considerable popular and scientific
debate over whether he acted alone; the case is still discussed."

------
MrTonyD
Wow. This article is the definition of tl:dr.

But it did remind me of a professor I had in College - he described himself as
one of the two most expert hypnotists in the world - and described how the CIA
kept asking for his help. He had discovered that people could be hypnotized to
do things against their will, and with no memory of the hypnosis. He said that
they would react just like Oswald to their actions under hypnosis. And my
professor believed that the other expert worked with the CIA.

Truth is definitely stranger than fiction.

~~~
themodelplumber
You should nail down this story. Write the guy, ask for background, confirm
your version of the story, etc. The reason I say this is, if your memory is
off by a single degree, that could change the entire story here. If your
professor's memory is off by a single degree, getting that resolved could
prevent some other people from hearing the story and going down a rabbit hole
and causing themselves unneeded anxiety. I've never read a hypnosis book that
suggested people would do things against their will, but that is different
from being open to suggestion.

~~~
MrTonyD
Obviously, his work was very secret. He shared some of the techniques with
some of his students - and there are more steps involved than normal hypnosis.
You can believe it or not. As for "anxiety" \- well, have you looked around at
our world recently? Wars, aggression, suffering, struggling, greed. One might
argue that we should rationally be feeling more than "anxiety".

------
swubaka
Just half-read, half-skimmed through the article. The TL;DR is simply that
almost all humans have a limit of mental breakdown, and torture tactics have
proven to destroy the mental barrier.

What was more interesting was the author's analysis of human behavior and
notions of fear, courage, and conformity.

------
themodelplumber
I'm a member of a religion that is often thought of as a cult, and a website
where I share my experiences in said religion is often Googled by people
looking to confirm their cult-oriented thinking (edit: to clarify, they are
googling to confirm that their assumption, that religion X as a cult, is
true).

So I ended up doing a lot of reading up on brainwashing. My tack was to
determine the objective signs of brainwashing or mind control, and it was a
very productive exercise, even though I came up negative regarding my own
experience.

What did fascinate me, though, was learning about Douglas Rushkoff's research
on our consumer culture. "The Persuaders" (Frontline/PBS) is a pretty amazing
show that gets at what I suspect is currently the biggest brainwashing-
equivalent threat that we face.

~~~
jsprogrammer
I'm curious to know what you determined are the objective signs of
brainwashing and mind control. Would you share?

~~~
themodelplumber
It's been a while, but if it helps, I divided my research into different
categories, like the signs that you'd expect from an organization using
brainwashing techniques, the objective signs that you'd expect in a leader or
leadership team using brainwashing, and the objective signs of someone
affected by brainwashing.

Using #2 as an example, some people assume that because an organization has a
publicly-visible leader, that person calls the shots (edit for clarity: when
in fact the organization may rely most on local councils, etc. and not so much
on the figurehead). That's why it's important to be clear on one's own status
--outsider or insider. This was a huge research boon for me. That
clarification results in a better idea of your own biases, and also gives you
an idea of the way your opposites (outsiders if you're an insider) may be
getting their information or education.

It is extremely easy to get one's own subjective thinking caught up in this,
no matter what your position. For example, some frequently-listed signs of
brainwashing are "emotional attachment" and "dependency." Not very helpful in
some hopefully obvious ways; these terms are practically plug-n-play with
confirmation bias. On the other hand, it _could_ be helpful information if you
developed a set of criteria. Some have tried, as I recall. Nothing scientific
because you essentially end up typologizing.

The other rather frightening thing was learning about government-sponsored
anti-cult movements, like the fairly recent movement in Russia. TBH, the whole
thing was pretty jacked up, and I cut it short when I started reading about
possibly innocent people getting locked up in psych wards. Another surprising
"anti-cult" force commonly listed is the media, and this seems like it could
hold true at least to the degree that a news outlet is willing to
sensationalize vs. provide solid reporting (then you get into what is solid
reporting, etc.). After researching that, IMO if you're getting cult
information from the media, it's a good idea to remind yourself that it's not
the same as doing your own research, no matter what the facts are about the
organization in question.

~~~
jsprogrammer
How can you determine who the insiders are if you are an outsider?

I'm not familiar with anti-cult movements. I'll have to look into it.

I might consider that if you find yourself referring to other people as
outsiders, you might be in a cult (though, I may be using a different
definition than you).

~~~
themodelplumber
Ah, so just to clarify regarding insider / outsider terminology, I'm getting
those terms from my research into religion in general and anthropology[1][2]
rather than my own religion. But that made me chuckle a bit, the idea of a
bunch of stepford wives chanting "outsider...outsider" and banishing someone.
That is a familiar sort of stereotype to me as an insider, though many
outsiders (again, not really my term, just a convenient abstraction) haven't
usually seen such a mental concept through to completion via e.g. direct
research, so it's still a shockingly common perception. I have some pretty
hilarious anecdotes from encounters with those perceptions, but they are long
to tell.

(BTW I'm happy to leave the non-scholarly use of terms like "outsider" to
nation-states[3]...hehe)

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Insider-Outsider-Problem-Study-
Religio...](http://www.amazon.com/Insider-Outsider-Problem-Study-
Religion/dp/0826481469) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emic_and_etic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emic_and_etic)
[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaijin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaijin)

~~~
jsprogrammer
Thanks for the links. I've started to look at them.

Sorry, I don't have much more to add to the conversation for now.

------
cryoshon
Interesting tome. I wonder how much of it is actually empirically accurate?

I'll skim it and see what's up. Obviously people will be jumping to call this
some sort of conspiracy theory style document, but whatever, maybe the
information is useful.

~~~
bitwize
It reminds me of a floppy disk that came into my possession, in the days of
floppy disks being actual things. The label read: "Dear Friend, Please tell my
story. God bless you, Dave Koresh". I was intrigued, though I knew even then
that its connection with the famous Branch Davidian leader was tenuous at the
absolute best. After inserting it and carefully checking for viruses, I found
that the contents were vaguely anarcho-punk, techno-liberwankian writings of
unknown provenance, perhaps culled from USENET or similar. Many of them had no
attribution.

In short, food for thought, but needs solid confirming data to be taken
utterly seriously.

------
Oatseller
I submitted this link to HN but didn't upload the text to archive.org. I was
doing some research on marketing and advertising methods used by politicians
in their campaign material (just general interest, no particular party or
conspiracy theories).

I don't know which article linked to this text (I had opened many tabs as I
was reading) but it appeared interesting enough for a submission to HN. It
didn't generate any interest initially, but I received an email from HN that
it appeared to be an interesting post and that I should submit it again, so I
did.

The second post has made it to the front page and generated some discussion, I
was going to post a link to the downloadable formats provided by archive.org,
but after checking the archive.org page I see that the text is actually a
published book [0] (1956, by Joost Meerloo (1903-1976)) uploaded by someone
with an Obama conspiracy theory that may not have the permission to release
the text to archive.org under a Creative Commons license (there are links from
Wikipedia to other online versions).

There's a Wikipedia page for Joost Meerloo[1] with links to online versions of
this and one other of his books - Delusion and Mass Delusion (Meerloo 1949)
[2], the Wikipedia bibliography list some other interesting titles authored by
Meerloo.

The book is available on Amazon (and goodreads.com) but the publisher
(Progressive Press?) appears to have many conspiracy-related releases so I
don't know how reputable they are.

[0] The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and
Brainwashing (1956, by Joost Meerloo (1903-1976)) [http://www.amazon.ca/The-
Rape-Mind-Psychology-Brainwashing/d...](http://www.amazon.ca/The-Rape-Mind-
Psychology-Brainwashing/dp/1615773762)
[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6736285-the-rape-of-
the-m...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6736285-the-rape-of-the-mind)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joost_Meerloo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joost_Meerloo)

[2] [http://www.lermanet.com/exit/mass-delusion-
meerloo.htm](http://www.lermanet.com/exit/mass-delusion-meerloo.htm)

