Home > Work > The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing
1 " Delusions, carefully implanted, are difficult to correct. "
― Joost A.M. Meerloo , The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing
2 " Our leisure time is occupied increasingly by automatized activities in which we take no part: listening to piped-in words and viewing television screens (no portable smartphones, laptops back when Dr. Meerloo wrote his book). We hurry along with cars and go to bed with a sleeping pill. This pattern of living in turn may open the way for renewed sneak attacks on our mind. Our boredom may welcome any seductive suggestion. "
3 " In his important social psychological experiments with students, Asch found out in simple tests that there was a yielding toward an ERRING MAJORITY opinion in more than a third of his test persons, and 75 percent of subjects experimented upon agreed with the majority in varying degrees. In many persons the weight of authority is more important than the quality of the authority. "
4 " The mind that is open for questions is open for dissent. In the totalitarian regime the doubting, inquisitive, and imaginative mind has to be suppressed. The totalitarian slave is only allowed to memorize, to salivate when the bell rings. "
5 " That tone and sound in speech have a conditioning quality is something we can verify from our own experience in listening to or in giving commands, or in dealing with our pets. Even the symbolic and semantic meaning of words can acquire a conditioning quality. The word "traitor," for example, provokes direct feelings and reactions in the minds of those who hear it spoken, even is this discriminatory label is being applied dishonestly. "
6 " The basic problems for the man tamer are rather simple: Can man resist a government bent on conditioning him? What can the individual do to protect his mental integrity against the power of a forceful collectivity? Is it possible to do away with every vestige of inner resistance? "
7 " As Dobrograev says, "Language is the means of man's adaption to his environment." We could rephrase that statement in this way: man's need for communication with his fellow men interferes with his relation to the outside world, because language and speech itself the verbal tools we use are variable and not objective.... In a simpler way we may say: he who dictates and formulates the words and phrases we use, he who is master of the press and radio, is master of the mind. "
8 " The slow coercion of hypocrisy, of traditions in our culture that have a levelling effect - these things change us. We crave excitement, hair-raising stories, sensation. We search for situations that create superficial fear to cover up inner anxieties. We like to escape into the irrational because we dislike the challence of self-study and self-thinking. "
9 " The Pavlovian strategy in public relations has people conditioned more and more to ask themselves, "What do other people think?" As a reuslt, a common delusion is created: people are incited to think what other people think, and thus public opinion may mushroom out into a mass prejudice.Expressed in psychoanalytic terms, through daily propagandistic noise backed up by forceful verbal cues, people can more and more be forced to identify with the powerful noisemaker. Big brother's voice resounds in all the little brothers. "
10 " By strengthening the myth of the dictator's omnipotence, such confessions weaken man's will to resist him. If a period of peace can be used to soften up a future enemy, the totalitarian armies may be able in time of war to win a cheap and easy victory. Totalitarian psychological warfare is directed largely toward this end. It is an effort to propagandize and hypnotize the world into submission. "
11 " Pavlov formulated his findings into a general rule in which the speed of learning positively correlated with quiet isolation. The totalitarians have followed this rule. They know they can condition their political victims most quickly if they are kept in isolation. In the totalitarian technique of thought control, the same isolation applied to the individual is applied also to the groups of people. This is the reason the civilian populations of the totalitarian countries are not permitted to travel freely and are kept away from mental and political contamination. It is the reason, to, for the solitary confinement cell and the prison camp. "
12 " Every culture institutionalizes certain forms of behavior that communicate and encourage certain forms of thinking and acting, thus moulding the character of its citizens. To the degree that the individual is made an object of constant mental manipulation, to the degree that cultural institutions may tend to weaken intellectual and spiritual strength, to the degree that knowledge of the mind is used to tame and condition people instead of educating them, to that degree does the culture itself produce men and women who are predisposed to accept an authoritarian way of life. "
13 " The totalitarians are very ingenious in arousing latent guilt in us by repeating over and over again how criminally the Wester world has acted toward innocent and peaceful people... [sometimes they use ridicule and other times they use boredom to lull people to sleep, under the illusion of peaceful coexistence]. "
14 " Hitler's psychological artillery was composed primarily of the weapon of fear. He had, for example, a network of fifth columnists whose main job was to sow rumours and suspicions among the citizens of the countries against which he eventually planned to fight... [an example of such a rumour/slogan was:] "Why should France die for England?" Fear began to direct people's actions. Instead of facing the real threat of German invasion, instead of preparing for it, all of Europe shuddered at spy stories, discussed irrelevant problems, argued endlessly about scapegoats and minorities. "
15 " It is often disturbing to see how even intelligent people do not have straight thinking minds of their own. The pattern of the mind, whether toward conformity and compliance or otherwise, is conditioned rather early in life. "
16 " Totalitarian ideology is able to blackmail man through his inner cowardice It threatens him into surrendering his innermost convictions in exchange for glamour and acceptance... "
17 " he who dictates and formulates the words and phrases we use, he who is master of the press and radio, is master of the mind. "
18 " Where thinking is isolated without free exchange with other minds and can no longer expand, delusion may follow. Whenever ideas are compartmentalized, behind and between curtains, the process of continual alert confrontation of facts and reality is hampered. The system freezes, becomes rigid, and dies of delusion. "
19 " The fear of freedom is the fear of assuming responsibility. "
20 " advertising symbolizes the art of making people dissatisfied with what they have. "
