{"id":157039,"date":"2024-05-09T21:36:38","date_gmt":"2024-05-09T21:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/?p=157039"},"modified":"2024-05-09T21:39:51","modified_gmt":"2024-05-09T21:39:51","slug":"how-brainwashing-theories-were-applied-to-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/how-brainwashing-theories-were-applied-to-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"How \u201cBrainwashing\u201d Theories Were Applied to Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Massimo Introvigne<\/em><\/p>\n

Originally, Russian and Chinese Communists were accused of using consciousness control techniques. Some psychic health professionals extended the accusation to religions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Article 3 of 5. Read article 1<\/a> and article 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Communist Manual “Brain-Washing: A Synthesis of the Russian Textbook on Psychopolitics”<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In previous articles, we saw how the CIA coined the word \u201cbrainwashing,\u201d and accused Communists of using sinister consciousness control techniques. At some stage, the CIA started believing its own propaganda and launched a secret experiment codenamed MK-Ultra, where it tried to \u201cbrainwash\u201d so-called volunteers. The project failed, and proved that \u201cbrainwashing\u201d techniques may reduce the unfortunate victims to vegetable-like human wrecks, but cannot install in them new ideas or loyalties.<\/p>\n

L. Ron Hubbard and \u201cbrainwashing\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

One who, without probably being aware that the secret MK-Ultra project was being planned, had anticipated that the only possible result of violent \u201cbrainwashing\u201d would be the production of zombie-like victims was the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard. He had a peripheral involvement in the Cold War discussion about \u201cbrainwashing\u201d as the Church of Scientology published in 1955 (and then rapidly withdrew, reportedly following a suggestion by American governmental agencies) a booklet called Brain-Washing: A Synthesis of the Russian Textbook on Psychopolitics<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
L. Ron Hubbard<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Critics have alleged that, by publishing the booklet, Hubbard \u201cconfessed\u201d that \u201cbrainwashing\u201d existed, with the implication that Scientology practices it, which they claim is supported by a statement that \u201cWe can brainwash faster than the Russians (20 secs to total amnesia against three years to slightly confused loyalty)<\/em>.\u201d However, critics have overlooked that Hubbard presented \u201cbrainwashing\u201d as something that should not be done and does not work. The \u201cbrainwashing\u201d he referred to was the one attributed to the Communists, where results were sought by inflicting pain and stuffing the victim with heavy drugs. Hubbard called this technique \u201cpain-drug hypnosis<\/em>.\u201d It was something different from the \u201cbrainwashing\u201d new religious movements will be accused of practicing decades later, where no pain nor drugs were normally involved.<\/p>\n

Not only was this kind of \u201cbrainwashing\u201d unethical, Hubbard said, it would never work<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hubbard stated in one of his 1956 Games Congress lectures:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not effective. It does not do a job. [\u2026] It is a hoax\u2014a hoax of the first order of magnitude. The Communist cannot brainwash anybody who is not [already] brainwashed. He cannot do it; he does not know how. It is one of these propaganda weapons. That\u2019s all it is. They [Communists] say, \u2018have this terrific weapon called brainwashing\u2014we\u2019re going to brainwash everybody.\u2019 Well, it would be awfully dangerous if they could. But do you know there is practically not a person in this room that would be permanently harmed by brainwashing, except as it related to being starved and kept under conditions of duress. In other words, if you put a guy into a military stockade and fed him poorly for two or three years, he is going to be in secondhand condition, isn\u2019t he? Well, that\u2019s just exactly the effect brainwashing had on them. It had no more effect than this<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

As mentioned in our previous article, Hubbard was right on this point, and the infamous MK-Ultra experiments had the only valuable results of confirming that \u201cbrainwashing\u201d cannot change ideologies or beliefs.<\/p>\n

A physiology of conversion and brainwashing<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Identity card of William Walters Sargant, 1947<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But how did the accusation of practicing \u201cbrainwashing\u201d traveled from Communists to the \u201ccults\u201d? The first author who applied the CIA\u2019s rhetoric of \u201cbrainwashing\u201d to religion was English psychiatrist William Walters Sargant in his 1957 book The Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Conversion and Brainwashing<\/em>, which became an international bestseller. Sargant popularized the idea that \u201cbrainwashing\u201d techniques had been derived in Russia from the famous experiments of Stalinist scientist Ivan Pavlov, where a dog accustomed to hearing a bell ringing every time it was given food, ended up salivating when the bell rang but no food was served. Some psychiatrists still believe in this theory, although Soviet and Chinese sources failed to confirm that Pavlov played any main role in their studies of indoctrination techniques.<\/p>\n

The central argument in Sargant\u2019s work was that Communists did not invent \u201cbrainwashing.\u201d At most, he believed, thanks to Pavlov, they reached a better understanding of the process, which they adapted from pre-existing religious revivalism and conversion processes. Sargant wrote: \u201cAnyone who wishes to investigate the technique of brainwashing and eliciting confessions as practiced behind the Iron Curtain, would do well to start with a study of eighteenth-century American revivalism from the 1730\u2019s onwards<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sargant believed that only “brainwashing” could explain the rapid development of early Christianity<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although in the third edition of his book, published in 1971, Sargant will include Scientology among the religions practicing \u201cbrainwashing,\u201d he did not believe that there was a difference between mainline religions, which did not use mental manipulation, and \u201ccults,\u201d which did. On the contrary, Sargant was decidedly anti-Christian, and he mentioned the Roman Catholics and the Methodists as two groups typically using \u201cbrainwashing,\u201d and accused of the same sin the first Christians. The English psychiatrist believed that only \u201cbrainwashing\u201d could explain the rapid growth of early Christianity.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The book The Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Conversion and Brainwashing<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even Apostle Paul\u2019s conversion as recorded in the Bible<\/em>, Sargant argued, might be explained through a \u201cbrainwashing\u201d scheme, with the Christian Ananias \u201cbrainwashing\u201d the Jewish, and originally anti-Christian, Paul. \u201cA state of transmarginal inhibition seems to have followed his [Paul\u2019s] acute stage of nervous excitement [\u2026 and] increased his anxiety and suggestibility [\u2026]. Ananias came to relieve his nervous symptoms and his mental distress, at the same time implanting new beliefs<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The birth of the anti-sect ideology<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many read Sargant\u2019s book, particularly within the psychiatric community, where it certainly fueled a hostile attitude to religion in general. However, its target was too broad to make the book of any use for promoting public policies. It was in the United States that psychologist Margaret Thaler Singer re-elaborated the ideas of Sargant claiming that not all religions used \u201cbrainwashing,\u201d only some newly founded that were not exactly religions but \u201ccults.\u201d This occurred in the climate of the 1960s and early 1970s, when the anti-cult movement was just being created, mostly among parents of college students who had decided to drop out of their universities to become full-time missionaries for the Unification Church or the Children of God, or shaved Hindu monks for the Hare Krishna Movement. As it occurred for \u201cheresies\u201d of the past, their parents did not believe that their choices had been voluntary, and psychologists such as Singer offered \u201cbrainwashing\u201d to them as a convenient explanation.<\/p>\n

Singer was instrumental in creating the anti-cult ideology, which is based on the idea that \u201ccults,\u201d which use \u201cbrainwashing,\u201d may be distinguished from legitimate religions, which don\u2019t. Eventually, however, this theory was discredited by scholars and rejected by courts of law, as we will see in our next article.<\/p>\n

(to be continued<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Source: <\/em>bitterwinter.org<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

yogaesoteric
\nMay 9, 2024<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Massimo Introvigne Originally, Russian and Chinese Communists were accused of using consciousness control techniques. Some psychic health professionals extended the accusation to religions. Article 3 of 5. Read article 1 and article 2. In previous articles, we saw how the CIA coined the word \u201cbrainwashing,\u201d and accused Communists of using sinister consciousness control techniques. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":156738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[980],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-perverse-masonic-manipulations-3480-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157039"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157040,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157039\/revisions\/157040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yogaesoteric.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}