Mind control

Mind control (also known as brainwashing, coercive persuasion or thought control) means trying to control other people's beliefs and behaviours.

Satirical art about brainwashing

In this process, a person or group persuades others to change their basic beliefs and values.^[1] They may use unethical methods and manipulation, which often harms the people being manipulated.^[2]

The term has been applied to any tactic which damages an individual's control over their own thinking, behaviour, emotions, or decision-making.

Theories about brainwashing and mind control were originally developed to explain how totalitarian regimes indoctrinated prisoners of war using propaganda and torture.

History

According to some authors, ideas about mind control can be found in all stages of human history.^[3]

Korean War

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word "brainwashing" first appeared in a Miami News article on 7 October 1950.

The article's author, Edward Hunter, worked as a journalist and a United States intelligence agent during the Korean War. He wrote a series of books and articles about Chinese brainwashing.^[4]

The Chinese term 洗腦 (xǐ năo, literally "wash brain")^[5] originally described methods used by Mao Zedong's regime in China. Their purpose was to change a person's mindset so they became a "right-thinking" member of the new Chinese social system.^[6]

Unlike in earlier wars, a relatively high percentage of American GIs defected to the enemy side after becoming prisoners-of-war. Hunter and others thought that brainwashing explained this.

Two former prisoners of war, British radio operator Robert W. Ford^[7][8] and British Army Colonel James Carne, claimed the Chinese tried to brainwash them during their imprisonment.

In a famous case, an American prisoner of war named Frank Schwable was tortured until he falsely confessed that he participated in germ warfare.^[9]

Cults and the shift of focus

After the Korean War, mind control theories shifted in focus from politics to religion. New religious movements started to emerge in the 1960s.^[10] More and more young people converted and joined them. Some of these converts suddenly changed their beliefs and behaviors; in some cases, they neglected or broke contact with their loved ones. People in the anti-cult movement said these sudden converts had been brainwashed.^[11][12][13]

The media quickly began to report this theory.^[14] Social scientists sympathetic to the anti-cult movement, who were usually psychologists, developed more sophisticated models of brainwashing.^[12] While some psychologists were agreed with these theories, most sociologists doubted that mind control could explain why people converted to new religious movements.^[15]