Mind-control

Mind control (also known as brainwashing, brain control, menticide, brain sweeping, coercive persuasion, thought control, thought reform, and re-education) is the concept that the human mind can be altered or controlled by certain psychological techniques. Mind control is said to reduce its subject’s ability to think critically or independently, to allow the introduction of new, unwanted thoughts and ideas into the subject’s mind, as well as to change his or her attitudes, values, and beliefs.

The concept of mind control, then called "brainwashing", was originally developed during the Korean War to explain how Chinese captors appeared to systematically indoctrinate American prisoners of war through propaganda and torture techniques. Mind control scholars also looked at Nazi Germany and at some criminal cases in the United States. The concept of mind control was later expanded and modified by psychologists including Margaret Singer and Philip Zimbardo to explain conversions to some new religious movements (NRMs). This resulted in scientific and legal debate; with Eileen Barker, James Richardson, and other scholars, as well as legal experts, rejecting at least the popular understanding of the concept.

Other views have been expressed by scholars including: Robert Cialdini, Stanley A. Deetz, Robert Jay Lifton, Michael J. Freeman, Joost Meerloo, Daniel Romanovsky, Kathleen Taylor, and Benjamin Zablocki. The concept of mind control is sometimes involved in legal cases, especially regarding child custody; and is also a major theme in both science fiction and in criticism of modern political and corporate culture. However, in the view of most scholars, mind control is not accepted as scientific fact.

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