Tools of Apologetics 1.8.3
Resisting Mind Manipulation
Analyzing The Methods Which The World Uses To Fight Truth
Chapter 3
Strategies Used For Mind Manipulation
Every attempt at Mind Control is a battle. All battles need arms/ammunition, soldiers and the proper strategy. For victory, all three of them should be available in the right proportion. For example, arms, ammunition and soldiers without proper strategy would not ensure victory. Since everything else except the strategy is visible to everyone, there is a possibility that we may ignore the strategy of the enemy. Rather than realizing its importance, there is a tendency in the spiritual war to downplay the importance of enemy strategy. And here most believers lose. According to his well thought out plan, the enemy attacks from the most unexpected directions and in the most unforeseen manner. The result is a defeated believer.
Thus the reason for emphasizing Mind Manipulation Strategies in this chapter.The basic strategies are few in number, but they have been well tried by the World and the Devil. They have proved to be very effective in attaining their goal of Mind Manipulation, especially in the presence of Helping Factors. These strategies are:
1-Repeated Exposure To Experiences
2-Consistent Repetition Of Ideas
3-Depth Targeting Of The Human Mind
4-Emotional Manipulation Of People
We shall discuss each of these in greater detail:
1-Repeated Exposure To Experience: All persons brought up in God-fearing families know their boundaries. They know that certain things are essential, others are tolerable, and still others are totally forbidden to them. Due to prolonged training, these people even learn to hate and avoid forbidden activities. Most such people are shocked at the mere mention of all things that require the crossing of boundaries, like disrespect for parents, disrespect for God and spiritual evils like lewd and vulgar conversation, pornography, intoxication, loose sexual morals, etc.
Though the forbidden things shock these godly people, the shock can be reduced by repeated exposure. Like hands of kitchen-workers that become insensitive to heat due to continuous handling of hot objects, continuous exposure destroys sensitivity and aversion against these things. The whole sequence works something like this:
First Exposure To Forbidden Things –> Recoil –> Repeated Exposure –> Reduction Of Recoil –> Toleration –> Development Of Curiosity –> Development Of Interest –> Liking It –> Desiring It –> Grabbing It.
The above is a simple explanation of how a previously innocent and devout person, who shuddered even at the thought of evil, ends up loving, desiring and embracing evil with pride.
2-Consistent Repetition Of Ideas: False ideas, doctrines and promises immediately alert people. Thus the false cannot easily gain acceptance into or access to their minds. However, if these false ideas are consistently portrayed as true, this repetition gradually begins to the alter the thinking of the recipients. Eventually a time comes when the False is accepted as totally and unquestionably true. Once this stage is reached, this person does not accept truth as true even if it is placed in front of his eyes.
The above technique is used every day by amateur as well as professional Mind Manipulators. As a consequence most people are convinced that there is an over-population problem, that overpopulation is the cause of lawlessness, that there is a scarcity of natural resources, that late marriages are better and that families with few children (or no children at all) are better than larger families. Young people are brainwashed into believing that premarital sex and extramarital sex will have no adverse effects. None of these beliefs have solid proofs and many of them have now been shown to be false. For example, the actual cause of lawlessness and scarcity of resources in our country is political corruption, not over-population. However, the erroneous views have been repeated so consistently that people now believe them to be gospel truth.
3-Depth Targeting Of The Human Mind: Depth Targeting is a psychological technique discovered around the 1930s. Much investigation has, through the years, been done of this field, particularly by political and consumer propagandists. Humankind’s sin nature seriously affects the way we think and make choices, specially at the SUBCONSCIOUS level. Depth targeting therefore tries to influence humans at this subconscious level, motivating them to do things that they would otherwise not do. Most professional advertisers and propagandists rely upon it.
Many consumer products available in the market go against the sober tastes, choices and ethics of God-fearing people. These include fashion accessories, lewd clothing, things that flaunt one’s riches and things that violate one’s ethics (such as premarital sex and the use of contraceptives to enable it), smoking, drinking and other such activities. This also includes pornographic books, videos, songs and other products that go with them. In a market that is over saturated with normal consumer products, only these abnormal products can help some people to profit.
What’s more, the profit margin obtained through selling the abnormal products is several times the profit margin available from normal products. Thus our increasing greed results in their desire to sell more of the abnormal than of the normal products. However, selling abnormal and harmful products is not easy in a society permeated with godly and civil values. Consequently, before these people can sell a spiritually-degrading consumer product, they have to shift and twist the values people cherish. Here Depth Targeting comes to their help.
Value Shifting is essential not only for selling many consumer products, but also for selling them in economical quantities. Often a society with freedom-for-everything is needed to enable such economical sales. Thus Depth Targeting is used for producing such a shift. The new values affect many areas of our lives some of which are:
CLOTHING AND FASHIONS: Depth Targeting is used to convince people that wearing clothing that is seductive, provocative and revealing are not wrong, but the most sophisticated thing to do. This immediately increases the sales and wearing of lewd and revealing clothes. The old values stated that one should not fan the lustful passions of others. The new value teaches that fanning the lust in others is the right thing to do. Such influence is the reason why even believers are often seen to wear seductive clothing. Depth Targeting is also used to sell after-shave lotions, cigarettes, liquor and even underwear for men. What they say through these advertisements is that using their product makes a man "totally manly"! The value-shift takes place when they indoctrinate people into believing that their real value is not based upon WHO they are, but upon WHAT they are able to acquire. This is a totally anti-Biblical idea.
The same Depth Targeting approach is used to sell lipstick, eye-shadow, perfumes and dresses to women. The message is that these products give them "real femininity". The value-shift takes place through the suggestion that real femininity does not depend upon WHO you are, but upon WHAT all you are able to acquire. Again this is a totally anti-Biblical idea.
Depth Targeting in all the cases above alter the values and behaviour of people for the express purpose of selling consumer products manufactured by greedy merchants. However, the ultimate result of allowing such manipulation is totally altered spiritual, ethical, moral and social values. Many social and family problems that we face today can be attributed to Depth Targeting.
SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR: According to Biblical values, a person should exercises self-control, a sense of responsibility to others and should exhibit stewardship in everything. Using Depth Targeting the Consumer Product Sellers convince people that the right thing to do is to become a show-off, wasting money lavishly instead of conserving it. They also indoctrinate people into thinking that indulgence in costly exhibition and abnormal behaviour is the accepted thing. The consequence of all this can be seen in the costly and worldly ways in which even believers these days celebrate Birth Days, Marriage Anniversaries, Marriage Jubilees, Engagements, Marriages, House Warmings and so on.
Most people do not realise that ultimately all such behaviour is the result of Mind Manipulation by the consumer industry. They do not realize that the more lavish these celebrations are, the greater is the profit to the business community. What is lost in this blind race is values, stewardship and morality.
MUSIC AND AUDIOVISUALS: Music and audiovisuals have great power to penetrate deep into human minds. The subconscious can easily be manipulated by using these. Thus music and audiovisuals have become the strongest partner of Depth Targeting. The easy and cheap availability of cassette players, CD players and similar products have widened the reach of these media beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. The result is an ability of propagandists to Depth Target an increased number of people and they are doing this diligently. This results, for them, in raking in profits. The result, for society, is a blurring of the distinctions between sacred and profane, holy and unholy, right and wrong. The boundaries have been diminished, diluted and even destroyed.
The value-shift that has taken place as a result of Depth Targeting in the second half of the twentieth century now openly manifests itself within the Christian community also. Many believers now think that the "show" element of a spiritual programme is more important than the "spirit" aspects of it. Consequently, there in an increased stress these days on the show aspects, making inaugurations, conclusions and felicitations more important that the spiritual ministrations offered in these programmes.
In our marriages this can be seen in two ways. The presence of music groups for the sake of "show" is considered more important than the participation of the audience in singing songs unto God. Consequently, the presence of expensive music groups has been increasing, while audience-participation in this "spiritual event" has come almost to naught. Similarly, the way videographers are allowed to totally dominate and disturb the spiritual atmosphere is a sign of our changed thinking that "the ability to see a programme later is more important than allowing the marriage ceremony to be conducted in a serene and spiritual atmosphere".
In summary, Depth Targeting has been so successful in the second half of the twentieth century that now even believers think that, for the sake of momentary earthly pleasures and transient excitements, the more permanent spiritual influences may be abandoned. The consequences of such thinking are very serious, but most people do not even realize that their hearts, minds, thoughts, actions and attitudes have been made captive over the past few years through Depth Targeting.
Using Depth Targeting through advertisements, merchants shift people’s values and sell their products. Sales of the product in turn shifts the values further, and so this vicious circle continues. Depth targeting works very well in advertisements that combine fantasy-arousing pictures coupled with tantalizing descriptions. TV advertisements are more powerful because they are animated and thus closer to life. The jingles and music added to TV advertisements multiply their already immense power. Songs, especially the modern pop and rock songs also help to shift values, leading to increased sales of many consumer products like music, seductive clothing, fashion paraphernalia and others.
HERO WORSHIP AND DEPTH TARGETING: Depth Influences become most powerful when they are joined with Hero Worship. Humankind are born hero worshippers by nature. This is demonstrated by the mad love and attraction which people show for music, film and sports stars. It is also shown by the way in which people imitate the clothing, hair style, gestures, speech styles, life styles, values and morality of their favourite heroes.
The same is the reason why film stars, beauty queens, sports stars and celebrities are paid huge ransoms for endorsing consumer products through advertisements. The emotionally-blind customers buy so much of the consumer product that the large payoffs made to the models are returned manifold.
Since the heroes are perceived as special people, the worshippers, in their minds, place them upon the highest pedestals of respect and awe. All humans unconsciously look for role-models to imitate and these heroes automatically become the role-models for their blind worshippers. Thus, soon, these worshipers start imitating their heroes. What should bother every thinking person is that conscious imitation of these heroes accounts only for 30 per cent of all such imitation. A whopping 70 per cent of imitation takes place unconsciously.
Unconsciously done things are often controlled by the unconscious mind, and neither conscious evaluation nor critique is involved. Thus in such imitation, the worshippers do not pause to consider whether this action is morally, ethically, socially and spiritually right and acceptable. Such a though never even occurs to them. In other words, if the hero crosses boundaries of proper behaviour, the imitator also crosses those boundaries automatically and without being bothered about the violation. Once such behaviour manifests in people, their consciences become calloused and are eventually neutralized.
Girls and women addicted to the world of Fashions and Beauty contests try to imitate those women in actions and morals. Men who are attracted to such programmes gradually develop the mental attitude that women are only consumer commodities, meant to be bared in front those who admire them and those who are willing to pay them. The effects upon those who worship at the altar of immoral rock stars, wrestlers, film stars and all the like are similar. It must also be noticed that the greater the exposure to such heroes, the greater the change taking place in the worshipper. Further, if other motivating factors are also present (such as parents who encourage this), the mental changes take place faster and at deeper levels. Unfortunately, all these changes that take place at the unconscious level are many times more dangerous and fatal than changes that take place at the conscious level.
4-Emotional Manipulation Of People: God has given human beings intelligence so that they might evaluate the pros and cons of every choice before they make a decision. Emotions are given to supplement intelligence, not to dominate it. However, using certain well-known techniques it is possible to bypass people’s intelligence to touch and manipulate their emotions directly.
Since emotions are totally subjective and devoid of intelligence, such Emotion Manipulation is capable of making a person do anything. All kinds of advertisers and propagandists use techniques to manipulate human emotions by bypassing human intelligence. We have included details of this phenomena in the book on Propaganda Techniques.
Circumstances And Factors That Aid Mind Control
When a Manipulator tries to control the Mind of a person, there are many factors that aid him. It is helpful to know the factors that help Mind Control and also those that oppose Mind Control. Such knowledge will help people avoid factors that weaken them and embrace those factors that strengthen them. Some of these factors are:
IGNORANCE: The attempts of Mind Control can be likened to an ever-present battle. Wars can be won only if sufficient information is available about the enemy, his weapons, his strength and his tactics. Similarly, in this battle between Good and Evil, it is essential to know all these things about the enemy.
The Bible repeatedly mentions ignorant people who have no idea of the dangers facing them. They fall into all kinds of traps. In our generation, young men and women who have not been instructed by their parents about the dangers they have to face in the world, fall into this category. Having no idea about the treacherous world system, these young innocents quickly fall into the traps of Mind Manipulation.
PEER DEPENDENCE: Christians should learn not to depend unnecessarily upon the favour of others. Anyone who depends too much upon others can easily be manipulated by them, and even more so if this dependence is to obtain unlawful favours. It must never be forgotten that all who crave and accept unnecessary (or out of proportion) obligations from others automatically place themselves under an unnecessary obligation to that person. This opens them to being easily pressurized to do things that they would like to avoid.
LACK OF PARENTAL SUPPORT: Since Satan is the prince of the present world, the things that he extols as good are not always acceptable as good to Christians. Many of these things are totally evil, but the majority is always with Satan. That is the reason why the "everyone is doing it" statement scares so very many people.
To resist such pressures and attractions in the face of the majority requires tremendous inner strength and plenty of outer support. Such support should come primarily from one’s family, and then from one’s church and spiritual circle. Parents who do not communicate freely and openly with their children, parents who do not take time to listen to their children’s pains and problems and parents who do not take time to offer them counsel and guidance, have failed to build a support system for their children. Such children are easily manipulated by worldly pressures.
ATMOSPHERE: The social and spiritual atmosphere prevailing around people has tremendous power to arouse various kinds of passions in them. The world can create such atmospheres that they arouse base passions, lust, rebellion, anger and even contempt for spiritual things. An atmosphere where one is surrounded by a mindless crowd can easily motivate one to enter into a dangerous mob-mentality. An opposite kind of atmosphere can create totally opposite kinds of feelings and responses. In essence, if the atmosphere is not conducive to independent thinking, resisting evil and hating sin, people may easily become susceptible to Mind Manipulation.
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