Mind Control and How to Stop it – Neil Brick
Mind Control and How to Stop it – Neil Brick
Information from conference PowerPoint
S.M.A.R.T.
The 2021 Online Annual Ritual Abuse, Secretive Organizations and Mind Control Conference Aug 14 -15, 2021
All accusations are alleged.
Please note: None of the material on these pages or at the conference is meant as therapy, or to take the place of therapy. These presentations may be very heavy to read for survivors. Survivors may want to read this with a support person.
Biography
Neil Brick is a survivor of ritual abuse and mind control. His work continues to educate the public about child abuse, trauma and ritual abuse crimes.
His child abuse and ritual abuse newsletter S.M.A.R.T. https://ritualabuse.us has been published for over 26 years. http://neilbrick.com
Abstract
This presentation will explain how mind control and different suggestive techniques work in a variety of individual and public settings. These will include interpersonal relationships, abusive relationships, ritual abuse settings, social media, political manipulation and hypnosis. Ways to expose and prevent mind control will be discussed. Social views of mind control will be presented.
Learning Objectives:
1) Participants will learn how different suggestive techniques can control thought patterns.
2) Participants will be able to discern how mind control techniques can be used in different settings.
3) Participants will be able to describe how different hypnosis and post hypnotic suggestion can be used.
4) Participants will be able to list the different social views of mind control.
Definition of Mind Control
WHAT IS MIND CONTROL?
Mind control, like ritual abuse, has both a broad and narrow definition. In a sense, all advertising is an attempt at mind control, an attempt to make people buy certain brands or objects. Propaganda (my country is right and good and the other country is wrong and bad) is also an example of attempted mind control.
Mind Control Definitions
In the survivor community, however, the definition is much narrower and more sinister. It means that part of a person’s mind has been programmed (that is, trained) to obey another person without question, while other parts of the mind are unaware of this situation.
What is Programming?
Programming refers both to the process of teaching part of the mind unquestioned obedience and to the content of what is taught.
Who Practices Mind Control?
Many cults that practice ritual abuse use mind control, in that their members are not aware, most of the time, that they are participating in the cult or in abusive acts or ceremonies. Governments also have experimented extensively with mind control, primarily through federally funded intelligence agencies and military research projects.
Suggestive Techniques:
Interpersonal and Abusive Relationships
There is a big difference between psychological or emotional manipulation and simple influence. Healthy social influence appears naturally without anyone trying to force it. We may affect others’ choices, preferences and judgement without threatening their health and emotional or physical well-being.
In case of psychological manipulation, however, manipulator’s goal is to create an imbalance of power in order to exploit others’ weaknesses to serve their own interests. The roots of emotional manipulation are quite complex.
Reasons why an individual may choose manipulative behavior
Generally, the reasons why an individual may choose manipulative behavior include
personal gain,
desire for power and superiority,
desire to control,
self-esteem issues,
boredom
Interpersonal and Abusive Relationships
If you suspect you are being manipulated, you need to find a way to stand up for yourself in a safe way. Sometimes the manipulator will apologize and temporarily correct his behavior only to return to it later. Avoid isolation and nurture relationships with other people to keep a healthy perspective. Romantic relationship with a manipulator can be especially damaging and must be avoided. https://psychologia.co/emotional-manipulation/
“I believe the only solution to the damage done to people in destructive cults is to “immunize” the general population against mid control groups. The most effective way to do this is to expose people to information about how the group works.” Combatting Cult Mind Control, Hassan p. 5.
Abusive Relationships in Groups (and Cults)
Isolation
Physical isolation can be very powerful, but even when physical isolation is impossible or not practical, manipulators will typically attempt to isolate you mentally. This may be achieved in a number of ways from one week seminars in the country to criticizing your family and circle of friends. Limiting any other influence by controlling information flow is the ultimate goal.
https://psychologia.co/mind-control-techniques/
Mind Control Techniques To Be Aware Of
Criticism
Criticism may be used as an isolation tool. The manipulators will usually speak in “us against them” terms, criticize the outside world and claim their own superiority. According to them, you must feel lucky to be associated with them.
Social proof and peer pressure
Those who attempt to manipulate large groups of people will typically use social proof and peer pressure to brainwash newcomers. Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where (some) people assume that the actions and beliefs of others are appropriate and, because “everyone does that”, must be justified. This works especially well when an individual isn’t sure what to think, how to behave, or what to do. A lot of people in such situations will simply look at what others do and do the same.
Fear of alienation
Newcomers to manipulative groups will usually receive a warm welcome and will form a number of new friendships that seem to be much deeper and more meaningful than anything they have ever experienced. Later on, if any doubts arise, these relationships will become a powerful tool to hold them in the group. Even if they aren’t completely convinced, the life in the outside world may seem very lonely.
Repetition
Constant repetition is another powerful persuasion tool. Although it may seem too simplistic to be effective, but repeating same message over and over again makes it familiar and easier to remember. When repetition is combined with social proof, it delivers the message without fail.
Fatigue
Fatigue and sleep deprivation result in physical and mental tiredness. When you are physically tired and less alert, you are more susceptible to persuasion. A study mentioned in Journal of Experimental Psychology shows that individuals who had not slept for only 21 hours were more susceptible to suggestion.
Forming new identity
Ultimately, manipulators want to re-define your identity. They want you to stop being yourself and become a robot, someone who mindlessly follows their orders. Using all methods and mind manipulation techniques mentioned above, they will attempt to extract a confession from you — some form of acknowledgement that you believe that they are good people doing a good thing (slight variations are possible).
In the beginning it might be something seemingly insignificant like agreeing that the members of the group are fun and loving people or that some of their views are indeed valid. Once you accept that one little thing, you may be more ready to accept another one and then another one and another… Before you know it, out of desire to be consistent with what you do and say, you start identifying as one of the group. This is particularly powerful if you know that your confessions were recorded or filmed — just in case you forget, there is a physical proof of your new identity.
Ritual abuse has been defined as:
a brutal form of abuse of children, adolescents, and adults, consisting of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, and involving the use of rituals. Ritual does not necessarily mean satanic. However, most survivors state that they were ritually abused as part of satanic worship for the purpose of indoctrinating them into satanic beliefs and practices. Ritual abuse rarely consists of a single episode. It usually involves repeated abuse over an extended period of time. The physical abuse is severe, sometimes including torture and killing. The sexual abuse is usually painful, sadistic, and humiliating, intended as means of gaining dominance over the victim. The psychological abuse is devastating and involves the use of ritual/indoctrination, which includes mind control techniques and mind-altering drugs, and ritual/intimidation which conveys to the victim a profound terror of the cult members and of the evil spirits they believe cult members can command. Both during and after the abuse, most victims are in a state of terror, mind control, and dissociation in which disclosure is exceedingly difficult
WHAT IS RITUAL ABUSE?
WHAT IS RITUAL ABUSE? (BROAD DEFINITION) Ritual abuse is the abuse of a child, weaker adult, or animal in a ritual setting or manner. In a broad sense, many of our overtly or covertly socially sanctioned actions can be seen as ritual abuse, such as military basic training, hazing, racism, spanking children, and partner-battering. Some abuse is private…some public. Public ritual abuse may be either open or secret.
WHAT IS RITUAL ABUSE? (NARROW DEFINITION) The term ritual abuse is generally used to mean prolonged, extreme, sadistic abuse, especially of children, within a group setting. The group’s ideology is used to justify the abuse, and abuse is used to teach the group’s ideology. The activities are kept secret from society at large, as they violate norms and laws.
(From Survivorship – Frequently Asked Questions)
Hypnosis in MPD: Ritual Abuse
D. Corydon Hammond, Ph.D. (“Greenbaum Speech”)
….Then approximately two and a half years ago I had some material drop in my lap. My source was saying a lot of things that I knew were accurate about some of the brainwashing, but it was telling me new material I had no idea about. At this point I took note and decided to check it out in three ritual-abuse patients I was seeing at the time. Two of the three had what they were describing, in careful inquiry without leading or contaminating
“Here’s where it appears to have come from. At the end of World War II, before it even ended, Allen Dulles and people from our Intelligence Community were already in Switzerland making contact to get out Nazi scientists. As World War II ends, they not only get out rocket scientists, but they also get out some Nazi doctors who have been doing mind-control research in the camps.”
What they basically do is they will get a child and they will start this in basic forms, it appears, by about two and a half after the child’s already been made dissociative. They’ll make him dissociative not only through abuse, like sexual abuse, but also things like putting a mousetrap on their fingers and teaching the parents, “You do not go in until the child stops crying. Only then do you go in and remove it.” They start in rudimentary forms at about two and a half and kick into high gear, it appears, around six or six and a half, continue through adolescence with periodic reinforcements in adulthood.”
“Ellen Lacter…gives this definition:
Ritual Abuse consists of conditioning and torture, carried out in a ceremonial or calculator manner
for the purpose of effecting control over a victim’s mind and behavior. It is international in scope, with similarities and variations across cultures.”
Dr. Miller describes the techniques (p. 12) used to mind control victims, including torture, abuse and druggings.
The tactics of these groups, however, are quite different from, and more extreme than, those found in visible cults. They are much more violent, for one thing. Their methods are more sophisticated and the consequences of those tactics more complex.” p. 13
Battle for the Mind – William Sargant
William Sargant first looked at combat PTSD and compared it to Pavlov’s classical conditioning. He extended Pavlov’s model to explain how people could change their world view suddenly. This was caused by intense trauma, followed by a person’s personality breaking down, followed by the application of new ways of thinking.
Pavlov’s dogs during a flood either forgot or reversed their previous training. First, Pavlov’s “equivalent” phase of brain activity or breakdown occurred.
Second, Pavlov’s “paradoxical inhibition” occurred where weak stimuli would produce strong responses and strong stimuli would produce weak responses (inappropriate responses).
Third, in the “ultraparadoxical” stage, responses changed from positive to negative and vice-versa. Current models of PTSD suggest that PTSD can be understood as learned helplessness, a set of foci in the brain firing repeatedly and inappropriately.
Cognitively, a person’s world view is so changed as to become untenable. Pavlov’s observations on animals breaking down under extreme stress could be applied to humans and survivors.
Pavlov was able to build up and break down behavior patterns in dogs. Pavlov’s work seems to have influenced confession getting and brainwashing techniques.
Pavlov’s dogs had four basic temperaments, strong excitatory, lively, calm imperturbable type and melancholic. Each type reacted differently to stress.
Pavlov could cause a dog to break down by increasing the intensity of a signal (electricity), delaying the time between the signal and food, confusing them with positive and negative signals interchanged or tampering with its physical condition.
If a dog of stable temperament acquires a behavior after extreme stress, it is hard to break this behavior. The could be compared to a person of strong character becoming a one-track minded fanatic. Some survivors may also become fanatics.
Social media
Propaganda techniques are similar in many ways to programming techniques. One could say a person is being programmed when being propagandized. The combination of vision and sound on TV make a person more suggestible.
Most people get their news from TV. Once a person is overly emotional or numbed out, they become more suggestible and less likely to critically think about their choices. Subliminal learning is then enhanced.
Examples of propaganda in our media today are all too obvious. It is unfortunately too easy to direct people’s attention away from the fraudulent elections in our country and the outright thievery of the rich corporations against the populace, by creating enemies and fear.
Misinformation and Propaganda:
Nazism – The Third Reich 1920 – 1945:
In 1924, Adolf Hitler wrote that propaganda’s “task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly.”
Nazi propaganda was distributed through a wide variety of media and social channels. Jewish people in particular were the targets of Nazi propaganda and negative social policies which led to the Holocaust and murder of millions of Jewish people as well as others.
Film portrayed a large role in the development of pro-Nazi and anti-Semitism in Germany. Film and propaganda were used to cover up the atrocities and murders in the concentration camps.
Like many countries, propaganda was used to encourage public support of war.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-propaganda
Modern American Right Wing Political Movement – 2016 – 2020
Modern American Right Wing Political Movement – 2016 – 2020:
Fox News has been considered the right wing’s “Ministry of Truth.”
https://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-donald-trumps-ministry-truth-cia-analyst-1378208
From Orwell’s 1984: “The government puts into manufacturing its own version of reality, from rewriting history to producing propaganda to trying to remove as many words as possible from the English language to reduce people’s ability to think.
Its main role is to help control the population through misinformation, outright lies and lack of information so that the state can maintain total power over the people.”
The Satanic Temple – Grey Faction and Doug Mesner/Lucien Greaves (both aliases) – 2000 – 2020
The Grey Faction uses a wide variety of propaganda techniques to misrepresent the pro-survivor movement.
“….Collective or cultural gaslighting, pushing society at large to question the sanity of its members who perceive politics counter-hegemonically and question the falsified historiographies of the ruling class. A linchpin of this societal gaslighting is formed by mechanisms which trigger the attribution of the “conspiracist ideation” label to certain discourses and by efforts to cause certain discourses to become dominated by or associated with faulty conspiracist ideational reasoning.”
“….the allegation that someone is a “conspiracy theorist” is almost always a figurative way to charge them with faulty reasoning or, at the very least, to imply skepticism of their claims.”
“we have seen that Misicko often ridicules his opponents as believers in conspiracy theories related to “MK Ultra,” comparing them to believers in “UFO’s” and “Past Life Regression”
Political manipulation
“Fascist politics includes many distinct strategies: the mythical past, propaganda, anti-intellectualism, unreality, hierarchy, victimhood, law and order, sexual anxiety, appeals to the heartland, and a dismantling of public welfare and unity….The danger of fascist politics come from the particular way in which it dehumanizes segments of the population. By excluding these groups, it limits the capacity for empathy among other citizens, leading to the justification of inhumane treatment, from freedom to repression, mass imprisonment, and explusion to, in extreme cases, mass extermination.” Stanley, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. p. XXVIII -XXIX
“In Mein Kampf…Hitler writes it is a gross misunderstanding to dismiss simple language as stupid. Throughout Mein Kampf, Hitler is clear that the aim of propaganda is to replace reasoned argument in the public sphere with irrational fears and passions…(Bannon) anger and fear is what gets people to the polls.” p. 55
“Fascist politics includes many distinct strategies: the mythical past, propaganda, anti-intellectualism, unreality, hierarchy, victimhood, law and order, sexual anxiety, appeals to the heartland, and a dismantling of public welfare and unity….
The danger of fascist politics come from the particular way in which it dehumanizes segments of the population. By excluding these groups, it limits the capacity for empathy among other citizens, leading to the justification of inhumane treatment, from freedom to repression, mass imprisonment, and expulsion to, in extreme cases, mass extermination.” Stanley, How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. p. XXVIII -XXIX
Mythical past:
“In all fascist mythic pasts, an extreme version of the patriarchal family reigns supreme….further back in time, the mythic past was a time of glory of the nation” p. 3
“The function of the mythic past is to harness the emotion of nostalgia to the central tenets of fascist ideology – hierarchy, purity, and struggle.” p. 5
Hierarchy
‘Fascist politicians represent the myths that legitimize their hierarchies as immutable facts.” p.80
“Might Is Right or The Survival of the Fittest…rejects conventional ideas of human and natural rights and argues that only strength or physical might can establish moral right”
Stanley describes the denial of fascism in society even when it is occurring, similar to Trumpism from 2016 – 2020. He talks about how Jewish people in Germany in 1937 did not realize the danger they were in. The Nazis of course covered up many of their crimes. Mass media today made it more difficult for Trump to do this (immigrant camps). This is like the denial of child abuse crimes today by false memory proponents with their gross misrepresentations of fact.
Hypnosis
THE BATTLE FOR YOUR MIND, by Dick Sutphen
Persuasion & Brainwashing Techniques Being Used On The Public Today
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/TR/sutphen.html
The Three Brain Phases
The Christians may have been the first to successfully formulate brainwashing, but we have to look to Pavlov, the Russian scientist, for a technical explanation. In the early 1900s, his work with animals opened the door to further investigations with humans. After the revolution in Russia, Lenin was quick to see the potential of applying Pavlov’s research to his own ends.
With the progression through each phase, the degree of conversion becomes more effective and complete. The way to achieve conversion are many and varied, but the usual first step in religious or political brainwashing is to work on the emotions of an individual or group until they reach an abnormal level of anger, fear, excitement, or nervous tension.
Other often-used physiological weapons to modify normal brain functions are fasting, radical or high sugar diets, physical discomforts, regulation of breathing, mantra chanting in meditation, the disclosure of awesome mysteries, special lighting and sound effects, programmed response to incense, or intoxicating drugs.
The same results can be obtained in contemporary psychiatric treatment by electric shock treatments and even by purposely lowering a person’s blood sugar level with insulin injections.
….hypnosis and conversion tactics are two distinctly different things–and that conversion techniques are far more powerful. However, the two are often mixed . . . with powerful results.
Research on mind control cults
The Manipulation of Spiritual Experience: Unethical Hypnosis in Destructive Cults
Linda Dubrow-Marshall, Ph.D. and Steve K. Eichel, Ph.D., ABPP
Reports
The process of cult and mass therapy indoctrination may involve repeated inductions of trance-like states of consciousness similar to hypnosis.
Environmental (milieu) control, social manipulation, isolation and the use of prescribed consciousness-altering techniques (e.g. repetitive and/or continuous chanting, meditating, or praying) are some of the methods employed by cults to produce these altered states of awareness.
Recent studies suggest that memories, emotions and even spiritual experiences can be manipulated while in hypnosis. Lack of informed consent and questionable concern for individual needs and wishes makes the use of these hypnotic techniques unethical.
A large part of the cult debate is concerned with whether or not these techniques constitute an objectively verifiable process of mind control. Behavioral scientists Clark and Langone (1983) claim they do; they have stated that “social psychology research … demonstrates rather conclusively … that environmental variables can influence behavior in remarkable ways … that mind control sometimes occurs in cults (p 28)….
Trance States
Trance is characterized first and foremost by heightened suggestibility followed closely by diminished critical thinking or reality testing–what Shor (l969) refers to as receding of the “generalized reality orientation.” Repeated induction often result in still greater degrees of suggestibility and deeper hypnotic states (Arons, 1981). By prolonging trance states, and with the use of repeated inductions, the cultist may become more and more pliable, less critical, more dissociated from him/herself and more apt to accept spurious and even preposterous notions as “facts.”
Post hypnotic suggestions
Posthypnotic Suggestion: Attention, Awareness, and Automaticity
Amanda J. Barnier, Ph.D. (Sleep and Hypnosis 1999;1:57-63)
“Hypnosis is not only intrinsically interesting, but also research into hypnosis can shed light on issues across the psychological domain.
This article explores ways in which hypnotic phenomena, in particular posthypnotic suggestion, can provide approaches to and understanding of complex issues in cognitive psychology.
For instance, when subjects respond to a posthypnotic suggestion, they are presented with a stimulus that they appear to be attending to and which influences their behaviour, yet they lack phenomenal awareness of it.
This discontinuity between attention and consciousness suggests that the assumed mapping of attentive processing and awareness is problematic.
For all intents and purposes, everything is back to normal; yet, subjects still demonstrate a lack of awareness for their behaviour.
This aspect of posthypnotic responding has long been recognised as one of its defining features (28,29).
For instance, Bernheim (30) described a typical response to a posthypnotic suggestion in the following way:
The patient hears what I tell him in his sleep, but no memory of what I said remains. He no longer knows that I spoke to him. The idea suggested arises in his mind when he wakes, but he has forgotten its origin, and believes it is spontaneous.
Ways to expose and prevent mind control
“NO ONE HAS EVER BEEN BRAINWASHED AND REALIZED, OR BELIEVED, THAT HE HAD BEEN BRAINWASHED.” THE BATTLE FOR YOUR MIND, by Dick Sutphen
Persuasion & Brainwashing Techniques Being Used On The Public Today
Solutions
“I believe the only solution to the damage done to people in destructive cults is to “immunize” the general population against mid control groups. The most effective way to do this is to expose people to information about how the group works.” Combatting Cult Mind Control, Hassan p. 5.
References
Hassan, S. (1988) Combatting Cult Mind Control. Rochester, Vermont: Park Street Press
Miller, A. (2012) Healing the Unimaginable: Treating Ritual Abuse and Mind Control. London: Karnac Books
Miller, A (2014) Becoming Yourself: Overcoming Mind Control and Ritual Abuse. London: Karnac Books
Sargant, W, (1957) Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Conversion and Brainwashing. New York: Doubleday
Stanley, J. (2018) How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. New York: Random House
Survivorship – Frequently Asked Questions
Psychological Manipulation
https://psychologia.co/emotional-manipulation/
https://psychologia.co/mind-control-techniques/
Mind Control Techniques To Be Aware Of
Child Abuse Wiki – Ritual Abuse
Report of the Ritual Abuse Task Force – Los Angeles County Commission for Women
Hypnosis in MPD: Ritual Abuse
D. Corydon Hammond, Ph.D. (“Greenbaum Speech”)
http://www.whale.to/b/greenbaum.html
Ritual abuse and mind control: the definition evolves
(Allison Miller – Healing the Unimaginable)
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Healing_the_Unimaginable/U0daDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Ritual+abuse+and+mind+control:+the+definition+evolves+(Allison+Miller+-+Healing+the+Unimaginable)&pg=PT39&printsec=frontcover
Excerpt from How Cues and Programming Work in Mind Control and Propaganda
Propaganda & Mind Control
Misinformation Campaigns Against Survivors – Neil Brick
How Hitler Conquered Germany
The Nazi propaganda machine exploited ordinary Germans by encouraging them to be co-producers of a false reality.
BY NICHOLAS O’SHAUGHNESSY
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/03/how-nazi-propaganda-encouraged-the-masses-to-co-produce-a-false-reality.html
Fox News is Donald Trump’s ‘De Facto Ministry of Truth,’ Ex-CIA Analyst Says
BY JESSICA KWONG ON 3/28/19
https://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-donald-trumps-ministry-truth-cia-analyst-1378208
Possible Hate Groups – How Do They Effect Survivors and Their Resources
Douglas Misicko alias Douglas Mesner Information
THE BATTLE FOR YOUR MIND, by Dick Sutphen
Persuasion & Brainwashing Techniques Being Used On The Public Today
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/TR/sutphen.html
Research on mind control cults
The Manipulation of Spiritual Experience: Unethical Hypnosis in Destructive Cults
Linda Dubrow-Marshall, Ph.D. and Steve K. Eichel, Ph.D., ABPP
http://www.carolgiambalvo.com/unethical-hypnosis-in-destructive-cults.html
Posthypnotic Suggestion: Attention, Awareness, and Automaticity
Amanda J. Barnier, Ph.D. (Sleep and Hypnosis 1999;1:57-63)
http://www.sleepandhypnosis.org/ing/Pdf/63790b4456c24c56848e1d924d7b0847.pdf
