It doesn’t take an online Masters in Mental Health Counseling to understand why the concept of brainwashing is so terrifying. From George Orwell’s 1984 to John Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate, fiction artists have been playing with the concept of having your actions dictated by another person for decades. Aside from the obvious ramifications of not having control over yourself, the moral implications and gray area are observed in several notable works.
But is there any real precedent behind the concept of another person controlling your thoughts and feelings? Is there any real-world possibility of someone effectively hacking your brain to force you into acting how they want you to? Today we’re going to explore the concept of brainwashing and mind control, looking over its prevalence in history, and seeing whether or not this phenomenon is a likely occurrence.
The History of Brainwashing
Although pre-historical and antiquarian societies may not have used the specific terms “brainwashing” or “mind control,” the cultural belief that a person can be controlled by external forces stretches back thousands of years. Many ritualistic religions of the ancient world gave way to beliefs that a person could become inhabited or “possessed” by a spirit or demon, and thereby become controlled by the supposed entity. This cultural belief continued through in Christianity, with possession being an ailment inflicted by demon kind possessing and controlling either willing or unwilling host. These cases often led to extreme punitive and exorcistic measures, arguably the most famous of which are the Salem Witch Trials.
Our modern understanding of “brainwashing,” that is to have your thoughts and opinions forcibly altered through coercive, often torturous means, was first established during the Korean War when the journalist Edward Hunter proclaimed in his 1950 headline “Brain-washing Tactics Force Chinese Into Ranks of Communist Party.” The article presented the process as invasive, and capable of reducing Chinese citizens into mindless drones.
Already in the grip of the Red Scare, America was in the throes of national panic, and Hunter’s article did nothing but fan flames. Combined with several soldiers in the Korean War making false confessions, and Hollywood releasing several major movies to do with the concept of brainwashing, social fear of the practice was rampant.
But was any of it true?
Truth or Trauma?
When it comes to brainwashing, the best statement is that there is a truth to it, rather than it is true, at least in the sense of its fictionalized and sensationalized depictions.
While people can be coerced into doing or saying something against their wishes, this isn’t the brain hacking depicted in fiction, rather it is severe, repeated torture carried on at length until a person’s will is broken down.
“Hidden Persuaders” is a research project at the University of London, that delves into brainwashing during the Cold War, and conducts psychological research around the topic, producing blogs, documentaries, and research reports on the subject. Hidden Persuaders research historian Marcia Holmes has found that while US Korean War soldiers did make untrue statements regarding the nature of combat in the war, it was not because they were under some hypnotic influence; but rather because they had been subject to various forms of torture.
The victims of this so-called “brainwashing” weren’t turncoats, weak-willed, or sleeper agents. They were traumatized men pushed closer to the brink than anyone should ever have to be.
What is worse is the legacy of this trauma. Due to the panic surrounding the conspiracy of communist sleeper agents in the 1950’s, the CIA conducted numerous psychological experiments to see if brainwashing could be done, if so what methods would be used to do so, and how to prevent it happening to US operatives. The experiments often broke ethical conventions and testing methods such as forced drug administration. People died and others were irreparably psychologically damaged. Even though records of the program, called MK-ULTRA, were destroyed in the wake of the Watergate scandal, some surviving records were released to the public with the Freedom of Information Act in 1977.
Outside of Torture and Fiction
In the real world, there exists no way to induce full control over a mind, and the scientific experiments we have to that effect succeeded only in doing irreparable brain damage. However, possibly the closest thing the modern world has to depictions of mind control in fiction exists in cults.
Cults are a community that gathers around the manipulations of a leader or authority figure. This authority figure often uses the insecurities of their followers to extort money, benefits, or favors, often to the detriment of their victims. Through cult programming, a person can be led to believe outlandish and untrue ideologies, submit themselves (or others) willingly to torture and abuse, be convinced to abuse others, leave their friends and family, strip themselves of their identity, and forfeit all their money and possessions to the ownership of the cult leader.
The manipulations of cult leaders are powerful and directly lead to the effects of brainwashing as present in the media. There are many cults all over the world, and while they aren’t using the torture methods of the Korean War to illicit obedience, or the drug-infused mind-wiping of MK-ULTRA, their techniques of exploitation allow them to exert their will (and therefore their influence) over others, often without the victim even realising it.
While there is a form of brainwashing that is good for people, it is a nightly cleansing performed by the brain during sleep to rid itself of “waste.” If you feel you may be under any form of abusive manipulation, contact the relative authorities immediately and distance yourself from the perpetrator.
