Some people consider mind control to include the efforts of parents to raise their children according to social, cultural, moral and personal standards. Some think it is mind control to use behavior modification techniques to change your own behavior, whether this is done by self-discipline and auto-suggestion or through workshops and clinics. Others think that such things as advertising and sexual seduction are examples of mind control. Still others consider it mind control to give a person drugs which take away the victim's ability to control her thoughts or actions. Many consider the tactics of religious cult recruiters to be mind control tactics. Many people believe that terrorist kidnap victims who convert to or become sympathetic to their kidnappers's ideology are victims of mind control (the so-called Stockholm syndrome). Similarly, women who stay with abusive men are often seen as victim's of mind control. Also, many people believe that subliminal messaging in muzak, advertising, or on self-help tapes is a form of mind control. Many also believe that it is mind control to use laser weapons, isotropic radiators, infrasound, non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse generators, and high-power microwave emitters to confuse or debilitate people. Few would doubt that the brainwashing tactics of the Chinese during the Korean war count as examples of attempts at mind control. Finally, no one would doubt that being able to hypnotize or electronically program a person so that they would carry out your commands without being aware that you are controlling their behavior would be a clear case of mind control.
A term with such slack in its denotation is nearly useless. In narrowing down the denotation the first thing I would do is eliminate as examples of mind control those activities where a person freely chooses to engage in the behavior. Controlling one's own thoughts and actions, whether by self-discipline or with the help of others, is an interesting and important topic, but it is not the same as brainwashing or programming people without their consent.
Also, manipulating or coercing people to do what you want them to, without taking away their freedom to resist, should not be considered to be mind control. And, certainly, using fear or force to coerce behavior should also be distinguished from mind control. Thus, one component of our definition of mind control should be that it be done either against one's will or without one's implicit or explicit consent.
Secondly, I think we should exclude from the denotation of 'mind control' the use of tactics which simply take away a person's control over their thoughts or actions, but do not give any meaningful control over the victim. To render a woman helpless by drugs so you can rape her is not mind control. Using a frequency generator to give people headaches or to disorient them is not the same as controlling them. You do not have control over a person's thoughts or actions just because you can do what you want to them or render them incapable of doing as they will. Thus, another component of mind control should be that it involve controlling another person, not just putting them out of control or doing things to them over which they have no control.
If we restrict the term 'mind control' to just those cases where a person controls another person's thoughts or actions without their consent, many of the things which some people consider to be mind control would be excluded by our definition. We would be excluding, for example, flattery, demagoguery, pandering, upbringing, seduction, doublespeak, advertising, and a host of other attempts to manipulate people. Nevertheless, not only do I think these things should not be considered as being within the domain of mind control, I think we need to pare the list even further if we are to have an accurate understanding of the kind of mind control that is most pernicious. Further paring, however, will not be a matter of refining our definition, but of demythologizing mind control.
There are many misconceptions about what is technologically possible today. Some of the misconceptions about mind control seem to be traceable to movies and books such as the "Manchurian Candidate." In that film, an assassin is programmed so that he becomes a zombie who will respond to a post-hypnotic trigger, commit his murder, and not remember it later. Other books and films portray hypnosis as a powerful tool allowing the hypnotist to have his sexual way with beautiful women or program her to become a zombie courier, assassin, etc. To be able to use hypnosis in this powerful way is little more than wishful thinking, though it makes for great fantasy.
Other fictional fantasies have been created which show drugs or electronic devices, including brain implants, being used to control the behavior of people. It has, of course, been established that brain damage, hypnosis, drugs or electric stimulation to the brain or neural network can have a causal effect on thought, bodily movement and behavior. However, the state of human knowledge of the brain and the effects of various chemical or electrical stimulations is so impoverished that it would be impossible using today's knowledge and technology to do anything approaching the kind of mind control accomplished in fantasy. We can do things which are predictable, such as cause loss of a specific memory or arousal of a specific desire, but we cannot do this in a way which is non- intrusive or which would have the significance of being able to control a large array of thoughts, movements or actions. It is certainly conceivable that some day we may be able to build a device which, if implanted in the brain would allow us to control thoughts and actions by controlling specific chemical or electrical stimuli. Such a device does not now exist nor could it exist given today's state of knowledge in the neurosciences.
There also seems to be a growing belief that the U.S. government, through its military branches or agencies such as the C.I.A., is using a number of horrible devices aimed at disrupting the brain. Laser weapons, isotropic radiators, infrasound, non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse generators, and high-power microwave emitters have been mentioned. It has already been established that our government has experimented on humans without their knowledge, in radiation experiments and in drug experiments. The claims of those who believe they have been unwilling victims of "mind control" experiments should not be dismissed as impossible or even as improbable, given past practice and the amoral nature of our military and intelligence agencies. However, these experimental weapons, which are aimed at disrupting brain processes, should not be considered mind control weapons. To confuse, disorient or otherwise debilitate a person through chemicals or electronically, is not to control that person. To make a person lose control of himself is not the same as gaining control over him. Also, some of the claims made by those who believe they are being controlled by these electronic weapons, do not seem plausible. For example, the belief that radio waves or microwaves can be used to cause a person to hear voices transmitted to him seems unlikely. We know that radio waves and waves of all kinds of frequencies are constantly going through our bodies. The reason we have to turn the radio or TV on to hear the sounds or see the pictures being transmitted through the air is because those devices have receivers which "translate" the waves into forms we can hear and see. What we know about hearing and vision makes it very unlikely that simply sending a signal to the brain which can be "translated" into sounds or pictures would cause a person to hear or see anything. Someday it may be possible to electronically or chemically stimulate a specific network of neurons to cause specific sounds or sights of the experimenters' choosing to emerge in a person's consciousness. But this is not possible today. Even if it were possible, it would not necessarily follow that a person would obey a command to assassinate the president just because he heard a voice telling him to do so. Hearing voices is one thing. Feeling compelled to obey them is quite another. Not everyone has the faith of Abraham.
Belief in these fictional fantasies about hypnosis, brain implants or electronic control of thoughts seems firmly entrenched in the minds of a number of ex-military people, whose superiors no doubt wish they had such weapons in their arsenal. There also are a number of people who are not only convinced that such weapons exist, they are convinced that they are victims of these fantasy mind control weapons. Not only does fiction re-enforce their delusions about the efficacy of these weapons, there are organizations which encourage the delusions under the guise of offering comfort and help to victims of "mind control." Of course, this network of fantasy would not be complete without belief in a government and mass media conspiracy to hide the truth. Some claim that the implants have been done by the military in secret experiments. Some claim there are still Nazi disciples of Mengele around doing experiments in Germany or at American universities for the CIA. One poor fellow believes that he is being hypnotized by government agents during the night while he sleeps. But he is small potatoes compared to those who think that the Kennedy assassination was an attempt at mind control over the whole nation. Now, as I said above, I don't doubt that our government has sanctioned experiments on people against their will and without their knowledge. Our government may even have debilitated some of those who now claim their minds are controlled by the C.I.A., but it is a near certainty that our government is not capable of controlling anyone's mind. To corrupt, disable, disorient or destroy is not the same as to control.
There seem to be a number of parallels between those who think they've been abducted by aliens and those who believe their minds are being controlled or were controlled by implants, electronic devices or drugs surreptitiously introduced by the CIA or U.S. Army. So far, however, the mindcontrolled group has not been able to find their John Mack, the Harvard psychiatrist who claims that the best explanation for alien abduction claims is that they are based on alien abduction experiences, not fantasies or delusions. A common complaint from the mindcontrolled is that they can't get therapists to take them seriously, i.e., they can only find therapists who want to treat them for their delusions, not help them prove they're being controlled by their government. Thus, it is not likely that the mindcontrolled CIA zombies will be accused of having delusions planted in them by therapists, since they claim they can't get therapists to take their delusions seriously. In fact, many of them are convinced that their treatment as deluded persons is part of a conspiracy to cover-up the mind control experiments done on them. Some even believe that False Memory Syndrome is part of the conspiracy, that the idea of false memories is a plot to keep people from taking seriously the claims of those who are now remembering that they were victims of mind control experiments at some time in the past. Personally, I find it hard to believe that they can't find a wide array of incompetent therapists willing to take their claims seriously, if not willing to claim they've been victims of such experiments themselves.
I would be the last person in the world to claim that it is unlikely that the U.S. military or the CIA have tried to control people's minds and actions. Of course they have, and they are no doubt continuing to try to do this. It is even within the realm of reasonable probability that they have tried a variety of techniques to do this, including using drugs, electromagnets, surgery, electric shock, torture, and even brain implants, and that some of these experiments were done on humans without their knowledge or permission. But it is a long way from the cruel if wishful thinking of military types, to the actual implementation of controls which have been attributed to our military and intelligence agencies. To assess the likelihood of success in this area, one should consider not just the real state of neuroscientific knowledge, but also the public record of moronic, bumbling, incompetent and dunderheaded misaccomplishments of our military and intelligence operations. These are the clowns who gave us Panama (Operation "Just Cause"!), a boobheaded kidnapping which resulted in several hundred deaths of Panamanian civilians. That was the operation where they played loud rock music outside Noriega's place in an attempt to drive him out. These are the same dancing pinheads who gave us Vietnam, Nicaragua, Chile, and other neat ideas, and who continue to give us Iraq. These are the clowns who use arms sales to Iran and international drug dealing as a tool to accomplish their pathetic goals. In short, it would not surprise me to discover that our government is trying to put brain implants in people or to control their behavior through drugs, microwaves or ESP, but it would be nothing short of a miracle if their results did not resemble those of the space shuttle that blew up before our very eyes due to a "major malfunction."
Now, on to some lesser myths about mind control, such as the notion that subliminal messages are effective controllers of behavior. Despite widespread belief in the power of subliminal advertising and messaging, the evidence of its significant effectiveness is based on anecdotes and unscientific studies by interested parties. You will search in vain for the scientific control studies which demonstrate conclusively to a reasonable person that playing inaudible messages such as "do not steal" or "put that back" in muzak significantly reduces employee or customer theft. You will search in vain for the scientific control studies which demonstrate that tapes with ocean music and subliminal messages are significantly more effective at motivating people than tapes with just ocean music. On a related note, contrary to what you may have been told, you cannot learn Mandarin Chinese in your sleep by playing tapes through tiny speakers under your pillow.
The final myth to discredit is related to those already mentioned, namely, the myth that we understand how the brain works in the integrated process of perception/consciousness/bodily movement/thought/action. We know a lot, and what we know strongly suggests that non-physical models of the mind will not be as robust or as useful as physical models which identify the mind with the brain and its interconnectedness to the rest of the body. But even though a materialist model of the mind might better explain how a person's basic personality and character can be changed in an instant by a trauma to a specific part of the brain, no model yet allows us to be able to begin developing the technology needed to control thoughts and actions via direct control of neural networks.
The above considerations should make it clear that what many people consider to be mind control would be best described by some other terms. The following come to mind: behavior modification, thought disruption, brain disabling, behavior manipulation, mind-coercion and electronic harassment. People are not now being turned into zombies by hypnosis or brain implants. Furthermore, it should be obvious that given the state of neuroscientific knowledge, the techniques for effective mind control are likely to be crude, and their mechanisms imperfectly understood.
If we restrict the term 'mind control' not only to those cases where a person controls another person's thoughts or actions without their consent, but also to those cases where this is known to have been done successfully, our initial list of examples of what people consider to be mind control will apparently be pared down to just three or four items: the tactics of religious cult recruiters, the tactics of husbands who control their wives, the Stockholm syndrome, and the brainwashing tactics of the Chinese inquisitors of American prisoners during the Korean war.
I think we can eliminate the cases of wives who are terrorized by their husbands or boyfriends. Such women are not victims of mind control, but of fear and violence. Still, there seem to be many cases where a battered woman genuinely loves her man and genuinely believes he loves her. She stays beating after beating, not because she fears what he will do to her if she leaves, but because she doesn't really want to leave. Perhaps. But perhaps she doesn't leave because she is completely dependent on her lover/batterer. It is not that she wants to leave but has nowhere to go. She needs him and stays because she is completely dependent on him. Now, if a man can reduce a woman to a state of total dependency, he can control her. But is it true to say that he has controlled her mind? To what extent, if any, can a batterer take away the free will of his victim? He can reduce her choices so that staying with him is the only option she knows. But what is the likelihood of this happening? It seems more likely that she will reduce her own choices by rationalizing about his behavior and convincing herself that things will get better or that they really aren't that bad. If a man is not using brute force or the fear of violence to keep a woman around, then if she stays, it may be because of choices she has made in the past. Each time she was abused, she chose to stay. He may have used sweet talk to persuade her not to leave, but at some time in the relationship she was free to reject him. Otherwise, the relationship is based on fear and violence and mind control does not enter the picture. So, I would say that a woman who appears to be under the spell of a batterer is not a victim of mind control. She is a victim of her own bad choices. This is not to say that we should not sympathize with her plight or extend aid to her should she ask. But she is where she is through bad luck and a series of bad choices, not because of mind control.
That leaves cultists, kidnappers and inquisitors. First, the tactics of the cults differ substantially from those of kidnappers or inquisitors. Cults generally do not kidnap or capture their recruits, and they are not known to use torture as a typical conversion method. This raises the question of whether or not their victims are controlled without their consent. I would have to say that some cult recruits are not truly victims of mind control and are willing members of their religious communities, just as many recruits into mainstream religions should not be considered victims of mind control. I would say that to change a person's basic personality and character, to get them to behave in contradictory ways to lifelong patterns of behavior, to get them to alter their basic beliefs and values, would not necessarily count as mind control. It depends on how actively a person participates in their own transformation. You and I might think that a person is out of his mind for joining a religious cult, but their delusions are no grander than the ones which millions of mainstream religious believers have chosen to accept.
But some cult recruits seem to be brainwashed and controlled to the point that they will do great evil to themselves or others at the behest of their leader, including murder and suicide. These are often the ones who are in a state of extreme vulnerability when they are recruited and whose recruiter takes advantage of that vulnerability. Such recruits may be confused or rootless due to tragic life circumstances. They may be people who are mentally ill or brain damaged, emotionally disturbed, greatly depressed, very confused, traumatized by self-abuse with drugs or abuse at the hands of others, etc. Such people are very vulnerable to those who would like to control their thoughts and actions. They are vulnerable because they do not have much control over their thoughts and actions. They are like passengers on a rudderless ship on a stormy sea. The cult recruiter has a rudder and he knows it. He also knows that the passenger knows he can only reach safety with a rudder. The trick is to get the passenger to want safety.
The techniques available to manipulate the vulnerable are legion. One technique is to give them love, the love they feel they do not get elsewhere. Convince them that through you and your community they can find what they're looking for, even if they haven't got a clue that they're looking for anything. Convince them that they need faith in you and that you have faith in them. Convince them that their friends and family outside of the cult are hindrances to their salvation. Isolate them. Only you can give them what they need. You love them. You alone love them. You would die for them. So why wouldn't they die for you? But love alone can only get you so far in winning them over. Fear is a great motivator. Fear that if they leave they'll be destroyed. Fear that if they don't co-operate they'll be condemned. Fear that they can't make it in this miserable world alone. Make them paranoid. But love and fear may not be enough, so guilt must be used, too. Fill them with so much guilt that they will want to police their own thoughts. Remind them that they are nothing alone, but with you and God they are Everything. Fill them with contempt for themselves, so that they will want to be egoless, selfless, One with You and Yours. You not only strip them of any sense of self, you convince them that the ideal is be without a self. And keep the pressure up. Be relentless. Humiliate them from time to time. Soon they will consider it their duty to humiliate themselves. Control what they read, hear, see. Repeat the messages for eyes and ears. Gradually get them to make commitments, small ones at first, then work your way up until you own their property, their bodies, their souls. And don't forget to give them drugs, starve them, or have them meditate or dance or chant for hours at a time until they think they've had some sort of mystical experience. Make them think that "It was you, Lord, who made me feel so good." They won't want to give it up. They've never felt so good. Though they look like they are in Hell to those of us on the outside, from the inside it looks like Heaven.
But what religion doesn't use guilt and fear to get people to police their own thoughts? And they are not the only ones. Some therapists use similar methods to control their patients. You get a person who is very vulnerable, you get them to think that you are the only one they can trust, that they can't get better unless they trust you, you give them hope and you make them think that the realization of their hope can only be achieved through them, you get them to see their loved ones and friends as not trusting you the way your therapist does, you get the patient to believe that a good part of her difficulty is being caused by those loved ones and friends, you try to drive a wedge between the patient and those she is most connected to in real life, you try to own her, to control her. The methods of cult recruiters aren't much different. The question is, are the cult recruits, the converts to the faith, the patients willing victims? How would we tell the difference between a willing victim and an unwilling victim? If we can't do that, then we can't distinguish any true cases of mind control.
Cult recruiters and other manipulators are not using mind control unless they are depriving their victims of their free will. A person can be said to be deprived of his free will by another only if that other has introduced a causal agent which is irresistible. How could we ever demonstrate that a person's behavior is the result of irresistible commands given by a cult leader? It is not enough to say that behavior which is irrational proves a person's free will has been taken from them. Giving away all one's property, devoting all one's time and powers to satisfying the desires of one's divine leader, committing suicide or planting poison bombs in subways because ordered to do so may be irrational, but how can we justify claiming they are done by zombies? For all we know, the most bizarre, inhumane, and irrational acts done in the name of the cult or the cult god are done either freely, knowingly and joyfully or perhaps they are done by brain damaged or insane people. In either case, such people would not be victims of mind control.
That leaves for consideration the acts of kidnappers and inquisitors, the acts of systematic isolation, control of sensory input and torture. Do these methods allow us to wipe the cortical slate clean and write our own messages to it? That is, can we delete the old and implant new patterns of thought and behavior in our victims? Well, first it should be noted that not everybody who has been kidnapped comes to feel love or affection for their kidnappers. And very few of those tortured by the Chinese went over to the other side. It may be that some kidnapped or captured people are reduced to a state of total dependency by their tormentors--similar to that of infancy--and begin to bond with their tormentors much as an infant does with the one who feeds it, offers solace and comfort to it and even reduces its pain. There is also the strange fascination most of us have with bullies. We fear them, even hate them, but often want to join their gang and be protected by them. I'm not going to try to dig too deeply into the human psyche here; I'll leave that to others. But it seems to me that there is not a strong case to be made that people who fall in love with their kidnappers or who turn against their country under torture, are victims of mind control. It may be interesting to psychology to try to discover why some people act as Patricia Hearst did and why others under similar circumstances would not have become "Tanya." But I doubt very much that mind control will play much of a role in their explanation. Likewise for the differences between those who succumbed to the Chinese brainwashing tactics and those who did not. There may be a fascinating psychological story there, but I doubt if mind control will play much of a part in understanding it.
It seems then, that if we define mind control as the control of the thoughts and actions of another without their consent mind control exists only in fantasy. Unfortunately, that does not mean that it will always be thus.
See related articles on channeling, cults, est , hypnosis, mind and Rama.
further reading
Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia: Notes from a Mind-Control Conference by Evan Harrington
Brainwashing & Mind-Coercion from Mandate Ministries
Mind Control and the Secret State by Daniel Brandt
Understanding the Victims of Spousal Abuse Frank M. Ochberg.
Microwave Harassment and Mind-control experimentation by Julianne McKinney
Nonconsensual Brainwave and Personality Studies by the U.S. Government
Government Research into E.S.P. and Mind Control
Broken Shackles Cults, Mind Control and the Bible
The Government Psychiatric Torture Site [Brian Bard]
50 greatest conspiracies of all time
The "Not Me" Myth: Orwell and the Mind by Margaret Thaler Singer Ph.D.
Mind Control: fact or fiction?
The Battle for Your Mind by Dick Sutphen
Becker, Robert O., M.D.and Gary Selden. The Body Electric - Electromagnetism and the Foundation of Life (New York: Wm. Morrow & Company, 1985).
Churchland, Patricia Smith. Neurophilosophy - Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1986).
Delgado,Jose M. R. M.D. Physical Control of the Mind, Toward a Psychocivilized Society (New York: Harper & Row, 1969).
Sargant, William. Battle for the Mind - A Physiology of Conversion and Brainwashing (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press., 1957).
Weinstein, Harvey. Psychiatry and the CIA: Victims of Mind Control (Washington, DC : American Psychiatric Press, 1990).