XPost: rec.sport.cricket, alt.privacy, alt.mindcontrol
XPost: sci.anthropology, sci.physics, soc.rights.human
From: TortureTechnologyNResearch@yahoo.com

How does Non-Technological Mind Control Work?

A technical overview of mind control tactics

¿Cómo Trabaja el Control Mental? : Una apreciación global técnica de
las tácticas del Control Mental


Terminology note: Today Mind control or brainwashing in academia is
commonly referred to as coercive persuasion, coercive psychological
systems or coercive influence. The short description below comes from
Dr. Margaret Singer professor emeritus at the University of California
at Berkeley the acknowledged leading authority in the world on mind
control and cults. This document, in substance, was presented to the
U.S. Supreme Court as an educational Appendix on coercive
psychological systems in the case Wollersheim v. Church of Scientology
89-1367 and 89-1361. The Wollersheim case was being considered related
to issues involving abuse in this area.

Coercion is defined as, "to restrain or constrain by force..." Legally
it often implies the use of PHYSICAL FORCE or physical or legal
threat. This traditional concept of coercion is far better understood
than the technological concepts of "coercive persuasion" which are
effective restraining, impairing, or compelling through the gradual
application of PSYCHOLOGICAL FORCES.

A coercive persuasion program is a behavioral change technology
applied to cause the "learning" and "adoption" of a set of behaviors
or an ideology under certain conditions. It is distinguished from
other forms of benign social learning or peaceful persuasion by the
conditions under which it is conducted and by the techniques of
environmental and interpersonal manipulation employed to suppress
particular behaviors and to train others. Over time, coercive
persuasion, a psychological force akin in some ways to our legal
concepts of undue influence, can be even MORE effective than pain,
torture, drugs, and use of physical force and legal threats.

The Korean War "Manchurian Candidate" misconception of the need for
suggestibility-increasing drugs, and physical pain and torture, to
effect thought reform, is generally associated with the old concepts
and models of brainwashing. Today, they are not necessary for a
coercive persuasion program to be effective. With drugs, physical
pain, torture, or even a physically coercive threat, you can often
temporarily make someone do something against their will. You can even
make them do something they hate or they really did not like or want
to do at the time. They do it, but their attitude is not changed.

This is much different and far less devastating than that which you
are able to achieve with the improvements of coercive persuasion. With
coercive persuasion you can change people's attitudes without their
knowledge and volition. You can create new "attitudes" where they will
do things willingly which they formerly may have detested, things
which previously only torture, physical pain, or drugs could have
coerced them to do.

The advances in the extreme anxiety and emotional stress production
technologies found in coercive persuasion supersede old style coercion
that focuses on pain, torture, drugs, or threat in that these older
systems do not change attitude so that subjects follow orders
"willingly." Coercive persuasion changes both attitude AND behavior,
not JUST behavior.

THE PURPOSES AND TACTICS OF COERCIVE PERSUASION

Coercive persuasion or thought reform as it is sometimes known, is
best understood as a coordinated system of graduated coercive
influence and behavior control designed to deceptively and
surreptitiously manipulate and influence individuals, usually in a
group setting, in order for the originators of the program to profit
in some way, normally financially or politically.

The essential strategy used by those operating such programs is to
systematically select, sequence and coordinate numerous coercive
persuasion tactics over CONTINUOUS PERIODS OF TIME. There are seven
main tactic types found in various combinations in a coercive
persuasion program. A coercive persuasion program can still be quite
effective without the presence of ALL seven of these tactic types.

TACTIC 1. The individual is prepared for thought reform through
increased suggestibility and/or "softening up," specifically through
hypnotic or other suggestibility-increasing techniques such as: A.
Extended audio, visual, verbal, or tactile fixation drills; B.
Excessive exact repetition of routine activities; C. Decreased sleep;
D. Nutritional restriction.

TACTIC 2. Using rewards and punishments, efforts are made to establish
considerable control over a person's social environment, time, and
sources of social support. Social isolation is promoted. Contact with
family and friends is abridged, as is contact with persons who do not
share group-approved attitudes. Economic and other dependence on the
group is fostered. (In the forerunner to coercive persuasion,
brainwashing, this was rather easy to achieve through simple
imprisonment.)

TACTIC 3. Disconfirming information and nonsupporting opinions are
prohibited in group communication. Rules exist about permissible
topics to discuss with outsiders. Communication is highly controlled.
An "in-group" language is usually constructed.

TACTIC 4. Frequent and intense attempts are made to cause a person to
re-evaluate the most central aspects of his or her experience of self
and prior conduct in negative ways. Efforts are designed to
destabilize and undermine the subject's basic consciousness, reality
awareness, world view, emotional control, and defense mechanisms as
well as getting them to reinterpret their life's history, and adopt a
new version of causality.

TACTIC 5. Intense and frequent attempts are made to undermine a
person's confidence in himself and his judgment, creating a sense of
powerlessness.

TACTIC 6. Nonphysical punishments are used such as intense
humiliation, loss of privilege, social isolation, social status
changes, intense guilt, anxiety, manipulation and other techniques for
creating strong aversive emotional arousals, etc.

TACTIC 7. Certain secular psychological threats [force] are used or
are present:That failure to adopt the approved attitude, belief, or
consequent behavior will lead to severe punishment or dire
consequence, (e.g. physical or mental illness, the reappearance of a
prior physical illness, drug dependence, economic collapse, social
failure, divorce, disintegration, failure to find a mate, etc.).
Another set of criteria has to do with defining other common elements
of mind control systems. If most of Robert Jay Lifton's eight point

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