Brainwashing, also known as mind control, menticide, coercive persuasion, thought control, thought reform, and forced re-education, is the controversial theory that purports that the human mind can be altered or controlled against a person's will by manipulative psychological techniques. Brainwashing is said to reduce its subject's ability to think critically or independently, to allow the introduction of new, unwanted thoughts and ideas into their minds, as well as to change their attitudes, values, and beliefs.
Margaret Thaler Singer was an American clinical psychologist and researcher with her colleague Lyman Wynne on family communication. She was a prominent figure in the study of undue influence in social and religious contexts, and a proponent of the brainwashing theory of new religious movements.
A cliché is a saying, idea, or element of an artistic work that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning, novelty, or figurative or artistic power, even to the point of now being bland or uninteresting. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning, referring to an expression imposed by conventionalized linguistic usage.
A thought-terminating cliché is a form of loaded language, often passing as folk wisdom, intended to end an argument and quell cognitive dissonance. Its function is to stop an argument from proceeding further, ending the debate with a cliché rather than a point. Some such clichés are not inherently terminating. They only become so when used to intentionally dismiss dissent or justify fallacious logic.
Marshall Herff Applewhite Jr., also known as Do, among other names, was an American religious leader who founded and led the Heaven's Gate new religious movement, and organized their mass suicide in 1997. The suicide is the largest mass suicide to occur inside the U.S.
Robert Jay Lifton is an American psychiatrist and author, chiefly known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of wars and political violence, and for his theory of thought reform. He was an early proponent of the techniques of psychohistory.
Steven Alan Hassan is an American writer and mental health counselor who specializes in the area of cults and new religious movements. He worked as a deprogrammer in the late 1970s, but since then has advocated a non-coercive form of exit counseling.
Cult is a lay term for a group perceived as requiring unwavering devotion to a set of beliefs and practices which are considered deviant outside the norms of society. Such groups are typically perceived as being led by a charismatic leader who tightly controls its members. It is in some contexts a pejorative term, also used for new religious movements and other social groups which are defined by their unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or their common interest in a particular person, object, or goal. This sense of the term is weakly defined – having divergent definitions both in popular culture and academia – and has also been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study.
The anti-cult movement, abbreviated ACM and also known as the countercult movement, consists of various governmental and non-governmental organizations and individuals that seek to raise awareness of religious groups that they consider to be "cults", uncover coercive practices used to attract and retain members, and help those who have become involved with harmful cult practices.
Milieu control is a term popularized by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton to describe tactics that control environment and human communication through the use of social pressure and group language; such tactics may include dogma, protocols, innuendo, slang, and pronunciation, which enables group members to identify other members, or to promote cognitive changes in individuals. Lifton originally used "milieu control" to describe brainwashing and mind control, but the term has since been applied to other contexts.
Ramtha's School of Enlightenment (RSE) is an American New Age spiritual sect near the city of Yelm, Washington, U.S. The school was established in 1988 by J. Z. Knight, who claims to channel a 35,000-year-old being called Ramtha the Enlightened One. The school's teachings are based on channeling sessions. Critics consider the organisation to be a cult.
Kathleen E. Taylor is a popular science author and a research scientist in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at the University of Oxford. In July 2012 she was appointed as a Science Fellow of the Institute for Food, Brain and Behaviour.
Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults is a 2004 psychology and sociology book on cults by Janja Lalich. It was published by University of California Press.
Combating Cult Mind Control is a nonfiction book by Steven Hassan, first published in 1988. The book presents itself as a guide to resisting the mind control practices of destructive cults, and focuses on the research of Margaret Singer and Robert Lifton as well as the cognitive dissonance theory of Leon Festinger. Hassan published a revised edition in 2015 which updated information on organizations that he alleges practice mind control and use social media to increase their influence.
The APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Methods of Persuasion and Control (DIMPAC/DITPACT) was formed at the request of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1983. The APA asked Margaret Singer, a leading theorist in cults and coercive persuasion, to chair a task force to "expose cult methods and tactics". Some examples that led to the task force's creation were the Manson family murders, Patty Hearst kidnapping, and the Jonestown massacre.
Brain-Washing: A Synthesis of the Russian Textbook on Psychopolitics is a Red Scare, black propaganda book, published by the Church of Scientology in 1955 about brainwashing. L. Ron Hubbard authored the text and alleged it was the secret manual written by Lavrentiy Beria, the Soviet secret police chief, in 1936. In this text, many of the practices Scientology opposes are described as Communist-led conspiracies, and its technical content is limited to suggesting more of these practices on behalf of the Soviet Union. The text also describes the Church of Scientology as the greatest threat to Communism.
Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China is a non-fiction book by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton on the psychology of brainwashing.
Janja Lalich is an American sociologist and writer. Lalich is an expert on cults and coercion, charismatic authority, power relations, ideology and social control. She is a professor emerita of sociology at the California State University, Chico.
Mind control has proven a popular subject in fiction, featuring in books and films such as The Manchurian Candidate and The IPCRESS File, both stories advancing the premise that controllers could hypnotize a person into murdering on command while retaining no memory of the killing. As a narrative device, mind control serves as a convenient means of introducing changes in the behavior of characters, and is used as a device for raising tension and audience uncertainty in the contexts of the Cold War and terrorism. Mind control has often been an important theme in science fiction and fantasy stories. Terry O'Brien comments: "Mind control is such a powerful image that if hypnotism did not exist, then something similar would have to have been invented: the plot device is too useful for any writer to ignore. The fear of mind control is equally as powerful an image."
Brainwash or Brainwashing may refer to:
