#thought control

[route22ny]

Today's Doonesbury cartoon.

[hexpatient]

"The term brainwashing is often associated with overtly coercive behaviors, exemplified by the image of a prisoner at the hands of abusive jailers. With social influence, the agents of influence are viewed as friends or mentors, which causes people to lower their defenses. Social influence gives the illusion of control. The individual believes he is making his own choices, when in fact he has been influenced to disconnect his own critical and decision-making capacity.

SINGER’S CONDITIONS FOR THOUGHT REFORM

Gain control over a person’s time, especially his thinking time and physical environment.

Create a sense of powerlessness, fear and dependency, while providing models that demonstrate the new, ideal behavior.

Manipulate rewards, punishments and experiences to suppress the recruit ís former social behavior and attitudes, including the use of altered states of consciousness to manipulate experience.

Manipulate rewards, punishments and experiences to elicit behavior and attitudes desired by leadership. Create a tightly controlled system with a closed system of logic, wherein dissenters feel their questioning indicates something inherently wrong with them.

Keep recruits unaware and uninformed that there is an agenda to control or change them. Thought-reform is impossible when a person is functioning at full capacity with informed consent."

Freedom of Mind by Steven Hassan. The Singer mentioned here is Margaret Singer, referencing her book Cults In Our Midst. (bolded by me)

[unwelcome-ozian]

Thought Control. Hypnotic and suggestive strategies that induce an altered state of consciousness are often used to reprogram people’s thoughts and memories. Other techniques to induce thought control range from hours of tedious, monotonous lectures several times a week where members must memorize and regurgitate the correct answers, to audible prayers, chanting, speaking in tongues, and meditation, in ways that reduce critical thinking. Eyes-closed visualizations and guided meditation techniques can allow a group to insert thoughts and beliefs into their members.

The ideology of authoritarian groups is typically all-or-nothing, black-and-white, us-versus-them, and good-versus-evil. Members believe the doctrine to be the ultimate “truth” that is sacred and scientific. Members learn “thought-stopping” techniques to keep themselves pure and resist evil thoughts. The language system of closed groups can be an actual dialect not shared by outsiders. “Thought-terminating clichés” make complex ideas into platitudinous buzzwords known only by other members. Not all groups give members new names; however, when they do, it is a powerful technique that supports changes in the person’s identity.

[commonsensecommentary]

Hardcore Leftist ideology and freedom of speech are (surprise!) apparently incompatible. Academia’s attraction to state/institutional control of thought “for the greater good” has turned higher education in America into a bad joke.

Ivy League is still struggling to figure out what's free speech – and what isn't. | Opinion

Alex Shieh, a student journalist at Brown University, asked questions about administrators' spending. Then the university investigated him.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

"Nineteen Eighty-Four was not supposed to be an instruction manual."

Yet so much Orwell's writings ring true today. Big Brother Watch is determined to make Nineteen Eighty-Four fiction again.

[saber-monet]

“They’re talking shit” manifesting technique

Or

“Let them talk shit” Method

So this is the technique that I used, and still currently use as an over-thinker to manifest my desired reality and maintain my desired mental state.

So back in college, I was insecure. The type of insecure, where if I hung out with friends and then I left the room, only thing that would be racing through my mind would be the idea of them talking about me behind my back. Like Just talking the most shit and calling me out of my name. Granted these are the types of friends I had back then, I now know better.

So here was the pattern :

Every time I left the room, and I felt insecure about something I had just said or done, I would imagine them saying bad things about me or finding me weird of off putting. The things I would imagine them saying, would break my heart. So I put a stop to it.

And I recognized those people were not in the room with me and I was using my imagination to hurt myself .

I could have been imagining them saying anything because I have that power and I’m choosing to see them saying most terrible things about me. So, I made the decision to imagine them still talking shit, but this time it was about all the good things I wanted.

( you have to keep the same hater energy when you do this btw)

Example:

“Who does she think she is? Just because she has a great body and works out and is always in a happy state of being. She think she’s better than us. 😒.  she think she’s rich too. She only has about $100,000 in her bank account. The rest is tied up in the stock market and crypto currency. So she technically doesn’t even have that much money. 🙄”

“ she wants to be an influencer sooo bad .ugh, So what if your YouTube channel grew by 200,000 subs in less than 3 weeks and you’re getting amazing sponsorship oppertunities. So what bitch you ain’t pewdie pie. You don’t even have 1,000,000 subs yet . Pipe down”

So in those examples, I just affirmed a reality where:

- I great healthy body

- im in a happy/content state of being

- $100,000 in in my bank account

-I have plentiful bountiful investments/crypto currency

-my YouTube channel successful

-I’m getting great sponsorship opportunities

And because I used other people to affirm those for me, it’s a stronger self concept/reality. Because I’m affirming it in, first person, third person and second person( by default).

This technique works with any “negative” dominating emotion.

So if you were anxious or have anxious dominant feelings. Start affirming, anxious thoughts that you would WANT to have.

For example:

“I hope my professor doesn’t hate me for being more educated/smarter on the subject than he is 😭. Like I get he spent years in school studying this stuff, but it comes easy to me and surpass his expertise every time without fail. I hope he doesn’t think I’m trying to show him up😰”

“ I hope the bank doesn’t get suspicious about how much money I’ve been depositing into my account. 😥Plus I’ve been getting so much money this year from random sources, in such large amounts, I’m kind of worried that the IRS is going to get involved and make filing my taxes a little complicated this year.☹️”

So, in those two short sentences, you just affirm that

you’re smart,

you’re doing well in the class, and

you’ve been getting large amounts of money throughout the year, from expected and unexpected sources. 

Remember if you want it, you can get it. Try “under-thinking” , it’s easier than you’d expect. No matter what state you are in. If you were able to tell a consistent story about how you want to be, you’re good.

* when I use the word “negative”, I’m talking about the words you are using to describe the situation. Because by default every situation is neutral. It doesn’t become positive or negative until you choose to assign it a value .

Don’t force yourself to be happy, force your thoughts to tell a better story. One that wouldn’t mind living out and experience. And the only except thoughts that affirmed the reality that you want. From any angle. You have to learn when and how to work with your emotions. Emotions are only bad if you identify them as bad.

When you come up with any other examples, please, I would love to hear them. share them with me.

[creature-wizard]

"You just have a victim mentality" seems to be turning into the New Age thought-terminating cliche at this point. Literally any acknowledgement that life ain't always sunshine and daisies, and sometimes you actually do have to wrangle with a difficult problem? That's victim mentality now, apparently.

[wesleytyler]