How To Survive Mind Control
The Essential Handbook on Mind Control Tools and Techniques: Penned by a Victim.
After finishing high school, I embarked on my college journey, opting for NYU. This decision marked my return to my hometown of New York, following a 13-year stint living in LA. Unfortunately, two weeks into the semester, a tragic incident occurred as I was raped on the college campus. This traumatic experience abruptly terminated my college career and plunged me into a profound pit of depression, accompanied by suicidal thoughts, leaving me without a clear path to process the profound trauma I had endured.
During one of those dark days, I found myself lying in bed, endlessly watching YouTube videos, confined to my room. In that moment, an unexpected glimmer of hope arose when I stumbled upon a US Air Force advertisement. Had I not pursued a career as a pilot, I might have never left that room, and this article might never have reached your eyes. Nonetheless, serving in the Air Force didn't fully mend the emotional wounds; it merely provided a temporary distraction.
Then, another unexpected turn occurred when the Agency came into my life, exploiting my trauma and subjecting me to mind control techniques that left me feeling disconnected from my own identity and actions. The purpose of this article is to shed light on some of these techniques. It seeks to illuminate not only the government's role but also the broader context of mind control. This article aims to help you recognize, comprehend, and counteract mind control should you ever encounter it, as our modern world is rife with such manipulation.
No matter, whether you find yourself drawn to serve as an agent of the state due to the exploitation of your trauma, or the government attempts to convince you that "we are all in this together" and that you must take specific actions to safeguard yourself, mind control subtly influences you. This article delves into essential knowledge that often remains unspoken. It, I hope, will inspire us to send that powerful signal. It's time for us to show that our modern society is strong, courageous, and compassionate. It's time for us to acknowledge and address our collective blind spots, make hidden information accessible, and validate the secrets carried by the marginalized survivors of mind control. It's time for us to welcome them home. And if touching my own story helps, I gladly do so.
Table of Contents
To attain mastery and exert influence over someone else's thoughts and behaviors, a specific technique or tool proves invaluable, particularly when it facilitates a complete transformation of their existing personality into the desired one. The subtlety of mind control methods can render them imperceptible to the person being influenced, although, in numerous instances, the manipulation is executed with a conspicuous, sometimes even ominous, approach.
According to the insights of psychologist and author George K. Simon, as articulated in his work "In Sheep’s Clothing: Understanding and Dealing With Manipulative People," effective manipulation of another human necessitates the manipulator or abuser to adhere to four critical principles:
Conceal their aggressive agenda and true intentions.
Understand the psychological vulnerabilities of the intended target and adapt their tactics accordingly.
Exhibit a level of ruthlessness that allows them to disregard any harm inflicted upon the victim.
Employ covert aggression in the form of relational or passive-aggressive strategies.
Crucially, the ability to discern the weaknesses of the victim plays a paramount role in achieving control, and many practitioners of mind control possess a keen and perceptive insight for identifying these vulnerabilities early on and subsequently exploiting them through a diverse array of methods.
Reinforcements
One of the more subtle ways to make someone do what you want them to do uses reinforcement as both a tool and a weapon.
Positive reinforcement uses praise, flattery, admiration, attention, affection, gifts, charm, sexual desire, and declarations of love to create a sense of absolute adoration in the victim. This kind of technique is used by narcissists and psychopaths to secure a victim by what is called “love-bombing,” and setting the victim up on a pedestal for what will unfortunately be a brutal and abusive fall from grace once the desired outcome is achieved. Positive reinforcement is used in training dogs and horses, too, and does wonders compared to punishment. When used for the benefit of the individual, such as in giving positive praise to a child in school, or a training athlete, this kind of reinforcement can build confidence and self-esteem. Interestingly, its opposite also serves this same dual role of helping, and harming, the targeted individual.
Positive reinforcement is often used in cults, especially in the early stages of creating a bond between the cult leaders and members. This is also a popular way of bringing followers into a religious organization —by telling them they are “chosen” or “special” in the eyes of God—and serves to create an image that leaves no room for negative behaviors and attitudes. This can create a false sense of love, intimacy, and closeness that can, at times, depending on the motives, be turned against the victim later when abusive behavior rears its ugly head.
Negative reinforcement is the polar opposite, using punishment, criticism, and the silent treatment to manipulate the victim into a certain behavior. Negative reinforcement can include things like shaming, guilting, yelling, abusive language, and even physical violence to make someone behave. For a long time, we trained dogs with negative reinforcement, shoving their noses into their poo or slapping them on the nose if they did something wrong, until it was proven time and again that positive reinforcement worked better!
But in terms of human beings, using violence, fear, and virulent language serves as a strong means by which one can degrade, diminish, and dominate. Negative reinforcement would certainly include, at its extreme, torture and ritualistic abuse, which we will discuss more in detail later.
I believe most of you already knew about these two tactics. However, intriguingly, the most sinister form of this particular tool or technique involves the use of both positive and negative actions. Intermittent reinforcement is more devious and effective at creating such cognitive dissonance in the victims that they cannot help but surrender control to their abuser. Because intermittent reinforcement relies on doubt, fear, anxiety, expectation, and hope, it plays upon the deepest emotional needs of our humanity, and twists and turns them into an ugly display of trauma that can literally drive the victim insane, or to suicide.
It works like this: The controller/abuser uses positive reinforcement all the time in the beginning, setting the victim up to then crave more positive reinforcement, which is then taken away intermittently, to create confusion and anxiety. The victim wants more of what he got in the beginning, and begins to accept even negative reinforcement as long as it is peppered in with positive. At this point, the controller/abuser can begin to actually torture the victim, and the victim will become so desperate for the love and attention he once got, he will accept more and more periods of abuse and lack of positive enforcement. Soon, the victim is settling for crumbs of positive behavior from the controller/abuser, who now has the victim under complete control emotionally and physically. (Writing this evokes memories of a prior "relationship" I shared with an individual.)
Intermittent reinforcement can lead to obsession on the part of the victim, doing anything to get even a tiny bit of the positive reinforcement he was love-bombed with in the beginning. This is known as “traumatic bonding” in the field of psychology.
Covert forms of emotional manipulation serve to put the victim under a “spell” of sorts, because the damage is done on a subconscious level. Some victims claim later they did not even know they were being manipulated until it was too late, and they had been hooked in psychologically, becoming captives to a sick and dysfunctional individual bent on controlling and using them. Not only does this kind of manipulation change the behavior of the victim, it also changes his thoughts and perceptions, and his actual reality, and removes his individual will and power over time.
Lest anyone think that only stupid, weak, or desperate people become victims of this kind of manipulation, the easiest victims are actually empathic, compassionate people of all levels of intellect. Controllers seem to know how to zero in on those who have big, trusting hearts, which is often why children are used in mind control experiments and ritual abuse. Extremely intelligent people join cults or believe propaganda. It has nothing to do with how smart a person is, and everything to do with how trusting, caring, and open they are—which makes them a perfect target for manipulators all along the spectrum. Psychopaths will actually seek out empathic people for abuse, as will narcissists, both masters at mind control.
Coercive Persuasion
This operates on a parallel path, employing manipulative techniques that undermine an individual's autonomy. Steven Alan Hassan, a licensed counselor and a former member of the Unification Church who now leads the Freedom of Mind Center, dedicated to researching and aiding those in need of deprogramming from mind control cults, has elucidated the concept of destructive mind control. In an interview with author Liane Leedom, MD, in 2007, Hassan expounded that destructive mind control seizes the "locus of control" away from the individual, employing a systematic approach encapsulated by the acronym BITE, which encompasses behavior, information, thoughts, and emotions.
Behavioral modification encompasses dictating how a person should dress, act, worship, appear, eat, sleep, engage in sexual activity, and more. The objective is to progressively control behavior, fostering a dependence on the controller or abuser, rendering autonomy obsolete.
Information is meticulously controlled and selectively provided to the victim to manipulate their perceptions and alter their reality. Thoughts and emotions are governed with a heavy hand, with victims denied the freedom to think independently, while any display of emotion is discouraged, if not outright punished. Fear, shame, and guilt play significant roles in molding or altering a person's mind, particularly the fear of physical harm or death. This is why torture can be a potent tool in extracting confessions, even for crimes not committed. The removal of essentials like food, water, sleep, access to information, exposure to light, and various other forms of physical deprivation, combined with psychological manipulation, can break even the most resolute individuals.
When it comes to these brainwashing techniques, the process of dismantling a victim's will and identity is typically more gradual and systematic than outright torture or physical violence. Dr. Margaret Singer, a clinical psychologist who specialized in studying brainwashing, cults, and coercive persuasion used in mind control, described these coercive psychological systems in her article titled “Coercive Mind Control Tactics.” She highlighted numerous tactics utilized to induce psychological changes, which are effective on both individual and social group/society levels:
Increasing Suggestibility: Employing audio, visual, and verbal stimuli to enhance suggestibility, including techniques like hypnosis, sleep deprivation, and limiting access to water and food.
Establishing Control Over Social Environment and Support: Using rewards and punishments, such as social isolation, restricted contact with family and friends, and cultivating dependence on the controller, cult, or abuser.
Prohibiting Disconfirming Information: Preventing exposure to any dissenting opinions or external information that contradicts the motives and agendas of the controller, cult, or abuser.
Forcing Re-Evaluation of a Person's Aspects of Self-Experience: Undermining the victim's conscious awareness of their individual reality, worldview, emotional control, and defense mechanisms, and replacing them with a new life history and reality.
Creating Powerlessness: Subjecting victims to frequent and intense actions that erode their confidence and judgment.
Inducing Aversive Emotional Arousal: Using non-physical means of punishment to manipulate emotions and behavior, including shaming, guilting, and social isolation.
Intimidation: Employing group-sanctioned threats to intimidate the victim into aligning with the controller's attitudes, beliefs, and other directives.
Evidently, the more severe and extreme these tactics are applied, the more control the victim relinquishes. Victims often endure a perpetual state of confusion and chaos, potentially developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) even after escaping from the controllers and sources of abuse. The aftermath may manifest as severe depression, anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia, physical ailments, emotional distress, an inability to concentrate, and a myriad of other health issues. Even after breaking free from the grasp of a controlling individual or entity, the effects of control persist, driving individuals towards the precipice of suicide, insanity, or necessitating psychiatric care if they fail to secure appropriate help and support.
Unlock a Wealth of Insights: Gain Full Access to this Exclusive Article and Others by Subscribing to My Premium Membership.
Your support as a paid subscriber enables me to continue producing high-quality, independent journalism on this important topics. As an ad-free platform, I rely on the support of my readers to keep this content accessible and free from external influence.
You can avail a 30% discount on the annual subscription, but this offer is only valid today.