The next step is to agree to complete training, thus assuring a high percentage of conversions for the organizations. They will usually have to agree not to take drugs, smoke, and sometimes not to eat; or they are given such short meal breaks that it creates tension. The real reason for the agreements is to alter internal chemistry, which generates anxiety and hopefully causes at least a slight malfunction of the nervous system, which in turn increases the conversion potential. Before the gathering is complete, the agreements will be used to ensure that the new converts go out and find new participants. They are intimidated into agreeing to do so before they leave. Since the importance of keeping agreements is so high on their priority list, the converts will twist the arms of everyone they know, attempting to talk them into attending a free introductory session offered at a future date by the organization.
The new converts are zealots. In fact, the inside term for merchandising the largest and most successful human potential training is, “Sell it by zealot!” At least a million people are graduates and a good percentage have been left with a mental activation button that assures their future loyalty and assistance if the guru figure or organization calls. Think about the potential political implications of hundreds of thousands of zealots programmed to campaign for their guru.
Be wary of an organization of this type that offers follow-up sessions after the seminar. Follow-up sessions might be weekly meetings or inexpensive seminars given on a regular basis which the organization will attempt to talk you into taking; or any regularly scheduled event used to maintain control. As the early Christian revivalists found, long-term control is dependent upon a good follow-up system.
All right. Now, let’s look at the second tip-off that indicates conversion tactics are being used. A schedule is maintained that causes physical and mental fatigue. This is primarily accomplished by long hours in which the participants are given no opportunity for relaxation or reflection.
The third tip-off: techniques used to increase the tension in the room or environment.
Number four: uncertainty. I could spend hours relating various techniques to increase tension and generate uncertainty. Basically, the participants are concerned about being “put on the spot” or encountered by the trainers, guilt feelings are played upon, participants are tempted to verbally relate their innermost secrets to the other participants or forced to take part in activities that emphasize removing their masks.
One of the most successful human potential seminars forces the participants to stand on a stage in front of the entire audience while being verbally attacked by the trainers. A public opinion poll, conducted a few years ago, showed that the number one most fearful situation an individual could encounter is to speak to an audience. It ranked above window washing outside the 85th floor of an office building. So you can imagine the fear and tension this situation generates within the participants. Many faint, but most cope with the stress by mentally going away. They literally go into an alpha state, which automatically makes them many times as suggestible as they normally are. And another loop of the downward spiral into conversion is successfully effected.
The fifth clue that conversion tactics are being used is the introduction of jargon—new terms that have meaning only to the “insiders” who participate. Vicious language is also frequently used, purposely, to make participants uncomfortable.
The final tip-off is that there is no humor in the communications, at least until the participants are converted. Then, merry-making and humor are highly desirable as symbols of the new joy the participants have supposedly “found.”
I’m not saying that good does not result from participation in such gatherings. It can and does. But I contend it is important for people to know what has happened and to be aware that continual involvement may not be in their best interest.
Over the years, I’ve conducted professional seminars to teach people to be hypnotists, trainers, and counselors. I’ve had many of those who conduct trainings and rallies come to me and say, “I’m here because I know that what I’m doing works, but I don’t know why.” After showing them how and why, many have gotten out of the business or have decided to approach it differently or in a much more loving and supportive manner.
Many of these trainers have become personal friends, and it scares us all to have experienced the power of one person with a microphone and a room full of people. Add a little charisma, and you can count on a high percentage of conversions. The sad truth is that a high percentage of people want to give away their power—they are “true believers”! Cult gatherings or human potential trainings are an ideal environment to observe first-hand what is technically called the “Stockholm Syndrome.” This is a situation in which those who are intimidated, controlled, or made to suffer, begin to love, admire, and even sometimes sexually desire their controllers or captors.
But let me inject a word of warning here: if you think you can attend such gatherings and not be affected, you are probably wrong.
A perfect example is the case of a woman who went to Haiti on a Guggenheim Fellowship to study Haitian Voodoo. In her report, she related how the music eventually induced uncontrollable bodily movement and an altered state of consciousness. Although she understood the process and thought herself above it, when she began to feel herself become vulnerable to the music, she attempted to fight it and turned away. Anger or resistance almost always assures conversion. A few moments later she was possessed by the music and began dancing in a trance around the Voodoo meeting house. A brain phase had been induced by the music and excitement, and she awoke feeling reborn.
The only hope of attending such gatherings without being affected is to be a Buddha and allow no positive or negative emotions to surface. Few people are capable of such detachment.
Before I go on, let’s go back to the six tip-offs to conversion. I want to mention the United States government and military boot camp. The Marine Corps talks about breaking men down before “rebuilding” them as new men—as marines! Well, that is exactly what they do, the same way a cult breaks its people down and rebuilds them as happy flower sellers on your local street corner. Every one of the six conversion techniques are used in boot camp. Considering the needs of the military, I’m not making a judgment as to whether that is good or bad. It is a fact that the men are effectively brainwashed. Those who won’t submit must be discharged or spend much of their time in the brig.
Decognition Process
Once the initial conversion is effected, cults, armed services, and similar groups cannot have cynicism among their members. Members must respond to commands and do as they are told, otherwise they are dangerous to the organizational control. This is normally accomplished as a three-step decognition process.
Step One is alertness reduction: The controllers cause the nervous system to malfunction, making it difficult to distinguish between fantasy and reality. This can be accomplished in several ways. Poor diet is one; watch out for Brownies and Koolaid. The sugar throws the nervous system off. More subtle is the “spiritual diet” used by many cults. They eat only vegetables and fruits; without the grounding of grains, nuts, seeds, dairy products, fish or meat, an individual becomes mentally “spacey.” Inadequate sleep is another primary way to reduce alertness, especially when combined with long hours of work or intense physical activity. Also, being bombarded with intense and unique experiences achieves the same result.
Step Two is programmed confusion: You are mentally assaulted while your alertness is being reduced as in Step One. This is accomplished with a deluge of new information, lectures, discussion groups, encounters or one-to-one processing, which usually amounts to the controller bombarding the individual with questions. During this phase of decognition, reality and illusion often merge and perverted logic is likely to be accepted.
Step Three is thought stopping: Techniques are used to cause the mind to go “flat.” These are altered-state-of-consciousness techniques that initially induce calmness by giving the mind somethi
ng simple to deal with and focusing awareness. The continued use brings on a feeling of elation and eventually hallucination. The result is the reduction of thought and eventually, if used long enough, the cessation of all thought and withdrawal from everyone and everything except that which the controllers direct. The takeover is then complete. It is important to be aware that when members or participants are instructed to use “thought stopping” techniques, they are told that they will benefit by so doing: they will become “better soldiers” or “find enlightenment.”
There are three primary techniques used for thought stopping.
The first is marching: the thump, thump, thump beat literally generates self-hypnosis and thus great susceptibility to suggestion.
The second thought stopping technique is meditation. If you spend an hour to an hour and a half a day in meditation, after a few weeks, there is a great probability that you will not return to full beta consciousness. You will remain in a fixed state of alpha for as long as you continue to meditate. I’m not saying this is bad—if you do it yourself. It may be very beneficial. But it is a fact that you are causing your mind to go flat. I’ve worked with meditators on an eeg machine and the results are conclusive: the more you meditate, the flatter your mind becomes until, eventually and especially if used to excess or in combination with decognition, all thought ceases. Some spiritual groups see this as nirvana—which is bullshit. It is simply a predictable physiological result. And if heaven on earth is non-thinking and non-involvement, I really question why we are here.
The third thought stopping technique is chanting, and often chanting in meditation. “Speaking in tongues” could also be included in this category. All these thought stopping techniques produce an altered state of consciousness.
This may be very good if you are controlling the process, for you also control the input. I personally use at least one self-hypnosis programming session every day and I know how beneficial it is for me. But you need to know, if you use these techniques to the degree of remaining continually in alpha, that, although you’ll be very mellow, you’ll also be more suggestible.
True Believers and Mass Movements
Before ending this section on conversion, I want to talk about the people who are most susceptible to it and about mass movements. I am convinced that at least a third of the population is what Eric Hoffer calls “true believers.” They are joiners and followers, people who want to give away their power. They look for answers, meaning and enlightenment outside themselves.
Hoffer, who wrote The True Believer, a classic on mass movements, says, “true believers are not intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but are those craving to be rid of unwanted self. They are followers, not because of a desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy their passion for self-renunciation.” Hoffer also says that true believers “are eternally incomplete and eternally insecure.”
I know this from my own experience. In my years of communicating concepts and conducting trainings, I have run into them again and again. All I can do is attempt to show them that the only thing to seek is the true self within. Their personal answers are to be found there, and there alone. I communicate that the basics of spirituality are self-responsibility and self-actualization.
But most of the true believers just tell me that I’m not spiritual and go looking for someone who will give them the dogma and structure they desire.
Never underestimate the potential danger of these people. They can easily be molded into fanatics who will gladly work and die for their “holy cause.” It is a substitute for their lost faith in themselves and offers them as a substitute for individual hope.
The Moral Majority is made up of true believers. All cults are composed of true believers. You’ll find them in politics, churches, businesses, and social cause groups. They are the fanatics in these organizations.
Mass movements will usually have a charismatic leader. The followers want to convert others to their way of living or impose a new way of life—if necessary, by legislating laws forcing others to their view, as evidenced by the activities of the Moral Majority. This means enforcement by guns or punishment, for that is the bottom line in law enforcement.
A common hatred, enemy, or devil, is essential to the success of a mass movement. The Born-Again Christians have Satan himself, but that isn’t enough—they’ve added the occult, the New Age thinkers and, lately, all those who oppose their integration of church and politics, as evidenced in their political reelection campaigns against those who oppose their views. In revolutions, the devil is usually the ruling power or aristocracy. Some human potential movements are far too clever to ask their graduates to join anything, thus labeling themselves as a cult—but, if you look closely, you’ll find that their devil is anyone and everyone who hasn’t taken their training.
There are mass movements without devils, but they seldom attain major status. The true believers are mentally unbalanced or insecure people, or those without hope or friends. People don’t look for allies when they love, but they do when they hate or become obsessed with a cause. And those who desire a new life and a new order feel the old ways must be eliminated before the new order can be built.
Persuasion Techniques
Persuasion isn’t technically brainwashing, but it is the manipulation of the human mind by another individual without the manipulated party being aware what caused his opinion shift. I only have time to very basically introduce you to a few of the thousands of techniques in use today, but the basis of persuasion is always to access your right brain. The left half of your brain is analytical and rational. The right side is creative and imaginative. That is overly simplified, but it makes my point. So, the idea is to distract the left brain and keep it busy. Ideally, the persuader generates an eyes-open altered state of consciousness, causing you to shift from beta awareness into alpha; this can be measured on an EEG machine.
First, let me give you an example of distracting the left brain. Politicians use these powerful techniques all the time; lawyers use many variations, which, I’ve been told, they call “tightening the noose.”
Assume for a moment that you are watching a politician give a speech. First, he might generate what is called a “yes set.” These are statements that will cause listeners to agree; they might even unknowingly nod their heads in agreement. Next come the truisms. These are usually facts that could be debated but, once the politician has his audience agreeing, the odds are in the politician’s favor that the audience won’t stop to think for themselves, thus continuing to agree. Last comes the suggestion. This is what the politician wants you to do and, since you have been agreeing all along, you could be persuaded to accept the suggestion. Now, if you’ll listen closely to my political speech, you’ll find that the first three are the “yes set,” the next three are truisms, and the last is the suggestion.
“Ladies and gentlemen, are you angry about high food prices? Are you tired of astronomical gas prices? Are you sick of out-of-control inflation? Well, you know the Other Party allowed 18 percent inflation last year; you know crime has increased 50 percent nationwide in the last 12 months, and you know your paycheck hardly covers your expenses any more. Well, the answer to resolving these problems is to elect me, John Jones, to the U.S. Senate.”
And I think you’ve heard all that before. But you might also watch for what are called imbedded commands. As an example: On key words, the speaker would make a gesture with his left hand which research has shown is more apt to access your right brain. Today’s media-oriented politicians and spellbinders are often carefully trained by a whole new breed of specialist who are using every trick in the book—both old and new—to manipulate you into accepting their candidate.
The concepts and techniques of neurolinguistics are so heavily protected that I found out the hard way that to even talk about them publicly or in print results in threatened legal action. Yet neurolinguistic training is readily available to anyone willing to devote the time and pa
y the price. It is some of the most subtle and powerful manipulation I have yet been exposed to. A good friend who recently attended a two-week seminar on neurolinguistics found that many of those she talked to during the breaks were government people.
Another technique that I’m just learning about is unbelievably slippery; it is called an interspersal technique and the idea is to say one thing with words but plant a subconscious impression of something else in the minds of the listeners and/or watchers.
Let me give you an example. Assume you are watching a television commentator make the following statement: “Senator Johnson is assisting local authorities to clear up the stupid mistakes of companies contributing to the nuclear waste problems.” It sounds like a statement of fact, but, if the speaker emphasizes the right word, and especially if he makes the proper hand gestures on the key words, you could be left with the subconscious impression that Senator Johnson is stupid. That was the subliminal goal of the statement and the speaker cannot be called to account for anything.
Persuasion techniques are also frequently used on a much smaller scale with just as much effectiveness. The insurance salesman knows his pitch is likely to be much more effective if he can get you to visualize something in your mind. This is right-brain communication. For instance, he might pause in his conversation, look slowly around your living room and say, “Can you just imagine this beautiful home burning to the ground?” Of course you can! It is one of your unconscious fears and, when he forces you to visualize it, you are more likely to be manipulated into signing his insurance policy.
Consensus Trance Page 4