Brainwashing and Subliminal Messaging

[Arifa]

The Role of Brainwashing in Current Events

Perhaps the most difficult thing the average Muslim deals with on a daily basis since September 11th is the massive brainwashing techniques and programs being employed by both Islamic extremists as well as the American government. So have you fallen victim to a brainwashing technique? You may be surprised to find out you have without even knowing it.

To begin with, one must first state the most basic of all facts about brainwashing: In the entire history of man, no one has ever been brainwashed and realized, or believed, that he had been brainwashed. Those who have been brainwashed will usually passionately defend their manipulators, claiming they have simply been "shown the light" or have been transformed in miraculous ways (Sutphen).

**** Sutphen says that “missionary work” is a "nice" term for brainwashing and any study of brainwashing has to begin with a study of Christian revivalism in eighteenth century America. He says that Jonathan Edwards accidentally discovered the techniques during a religious crusade in 1735 in Northampton, Massachusetts. By inducing guilt and acute apprehension and by increasing tension, the "sinners" attending his revival meetings would break down and completely submit. Technically, what Edwards was doing was creating conditions that wipe the brain slate clean so that the mind accepts new programming. The problem was that the new input was negative. He would tell them, "You're a sinner! You're destined for hell!" As a result, one person committed suicide and many another’s attempted suicide or thought of it. Cults are another famous hotbed of brainwashing techniques.

Brainwashing techniques are not new, however. Brainwashing has been used for hundreds of year, but only recently has it been scientifically analyzed and recorded. Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, famous for his discovery that a dog fed to the sound of a bell would salivate upon its sound, recorded three distinct phases in a person that is being brainwashed. He called these progressive states of transmarginal inhibition. The first stage he identified was the Equivalent Phase, in which the brain gives the same response to both strong and weak stimuli. The second is the Paradoxical, in which the brain responds more actively to weak stimuli than to strong. The third is the Ultra-Paradoxical Phase, in which conditioned responses and behavior patterns turn from positive to negative or from negative to positive. With the progression through each phase, the degree of conversion becomes more effective and complete.

The way to bring a person through these phases are many and varied, but the usual first step in religious or political brainwashing is to work on the emotions of an individual or group until they reach an abnormal level of anger, fear, excitement, or nervous tension. The progressive result of this mental condition is to impair judgment and increase suggestibility. The more this condition can be maintained or intensified, the more it compounds. Once catharsis, or the first brain phase, is reached, the complete mental takeover becomes easier. Existing mental programming can be replaced with new patterns of thinking and behavior.

Other often-used physiological weapons to modify normal brain functions are fasting, radical or high sugar diets, physical discomforts, regulation of breathing, chanting in meditation or prayer, the disclosure of awesome mysteries, special lighting and sound effects, programmed response to incense, or intoxicating drugs.

Increasing the effect of brainwashing is the modern acceptability of this method of communication. Because the modern citizen of the mass media age is naturally exposed to brainwashing through television, advertisements, political campaigns and other means, the techniques have become almost second nature to some people. Some people so naturally use the techniques that they would be shocked if someone accused them of employing methods of brainwashing. In addition, many of the techniques have been purified by including them in seminars on effective marketing techniques or public speaking skills, or in books on how to win friends and influence people. In fact, brainwashing has become such an acceptable technique that the word itself is hardly seen in the press anymore and thought to be extinct by many except in the realms of the torture chamber or cult rituals.

Brainwashing, however, is more alive and well than ever before. This is, in fact, most apparent in television broadcasting. By the age of 16, children have spent 10,000 to 15,000 hours watching television- more time than they spend in school. In the average home, the TV set is on for six hours and 44 minutes per day-an increase of nine minutes from 2001 and three times the average rate of increase during the 1970s.

David Finch, in his article “Manipulation of the Media” says that when you start to combine subliminal messages behind the music, subliminal visuals projected on the screen, hypnotically produced visual effects, sustained musical beats at a trance-inducing pace you have extremely effective brainwashing. Every hour that you spend watching the TV set you become more conditioned.

In the Arab world, where television is less prominent it is often radio, Friday prayer or schools in which the techniques are most effective. Although these techniques are also used in the radios, churches and schools of the Western world, television still remains the number one influence on the Western youth - while schooling and religious instruction are still the number one influence on Arab youth.

Techniques

Voice Techniques

A "voice roll" is a patterned, paced style used by hypnotists when inducing a trance. It is also used by many lawyers when they desire to entrench a point firmly into the minds of the jurors. A voice roll can sound as if the speaker were talking to the beat of a metronome or it may sound as though he were emphasizing every word in a monotonous, patterned style (Martin). In American media news announcers often employee this technique in their delivery of the news. In the Middle East or in mosques around the world, unscrupulous users of this technique can even use the rhythmic cadence of the Qur'an to serve their purposes.

Neuro-Lingustics

Neuro-Linguistic training is often given to government employees and is readily available to anyone willing to devote the time and pay the price. Versions of this training are also given to salesmen and missionaries. The theory behind Neuro-Lingustics is that the left half of your brain is analytical and rational and the right side is creative and imaginative, so if one can distract the left-brain and keep it busy, the right brain would be more susceptible to suggestion. Ideally, the persuader generates an eyes-open altered state of consciousness, causing one to shift from beta awareness into alpha; this can be measured on an EEG machine. They then distract the left-brain by getting it to agree to logical thought and then they kick in the last persuasive sentence (Sutphen).

Recent tests by researcher Herbert Krugman showed that, while viewers were watching TV, right-brain activity outnumbered left-brain activity by a ratio of two to one. Put more simply, the viewers were in an altered state in trance more often than not. They were getting their Beta-endorphin "fix." (Sutphen). This also happens quite frequently in religious sermons.

Another way to distract the left brain is to bombard the listener with a number of statements in which they would most likely agree with and then at the end of the speech to literally sneak in a sentence while the listener is still nodding their head “yes”. This is common in political speeches in the media worldwide.

This technique was used by both sides of the issue immediately following the September 11th attacks. In the American media the President would start by stating a number of obvious statements such as, "The attack on the World Trade Center was a horrendous assault on humanity". He would end with a statement such as, "We must now show the world that America will stand up to terrorism”.

In the camps of Osama bin Laden, he employed similar techniques. First, he would state a number of popularly agreed upon views of the Western World, add a few supposed facts to the mix and end with an obvious conclusion that "The people who have done these horrible things needed to be punished”.

In an interview with the Qatari satellite channel Al-Jazeera, bin Laden started by describing the American people as immoral, with no values, using American films as his ultimate proof. He then expressed his admiration for the implementers of the U.S. embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salam saying that the embassy in Nairobi was the center for series of repeated schemes from which an American invasion was launched into Somalia, leading to the deaths of 13,000 persons. He then called for targeting U.S. citizens all over the world (Arab News).

Subliminals

Subliminals are hidden suggestions that only the subconscious perceives. They can be audio, hidden behind music, or visual, airbrushed into a picture, flashed on a screen so fast that one doesn’t consciously see them, or cleverly incorporated into a picture or design. Department stores using this technique reported a 37 percent decrease in shoplifting by simply imbedding the words don’t steal in their music tapes. Subliminals are supposedly illegal in advertising and other forms of media. However, they are not regulated strictly in America and in other parts of the world are not regulated at all.

A Play on Words

It’s not what you say but how you say it is a traditional wisdom. This is nowhere more obvious than in brainwashing techniques. Recently, however, the power of correct word choice has also been given more favorable press when it was labeled as politically correct speech. At this time a number of phrases in the American language were changed to reflect a more positive and respectful attitude towards diversity. One example is the change from the word "blind" to "visually challenged". However, the same play on words can also serve a more negative purpose. A good example of this deceitful technique was used by the American government in the Panama invasion by referring to the "aerial assassination attempt" as "Operation Just Cause" (Martin).

In the same way, when American soldiers are faced with a "target-rich environment", it probably means they got to fire into a crowd. But the word "rich" has an automatic subconscious appeal. The term "surgical strike" gets used because the term "surgical" brings with it a positive association with doctors and saving lives. Missiles have also been called "peacekeepers".

In recent months the words “War on Terrorism” have been employed to justify a great number of military actions taken by the American government. In the world of bin Laden, Americans have been called "The Great Satans" and his targeting of the American people has been often referred to as a "Fight Against the Evil Powers of Satan" or "The Evil Empire."

The First Impression

Most people form long lasting, if not permanent appraisals of strangers based on their "first impressions" The same thing happens with news stories, and other areas of information dispersal. In the American media, the first impression everyone had of the events of September 11th were photos of planes hitting the World Trade Center interspersed with photos of Osama bin Laden. In the world of fin Laden and also in the world of the Palestinian “suicide bombers”, followers are often carefully groomed at educational institutions where the first impressions fed to the students are of an evil Western society attacking and undermining an innocent and pure Islamic nations. In some schools children are even taught that the words cross, Christian or pig should not even be uttered or at least be uttered with distain. This first impression left on the children sets the stage for future susceptibility to suggestion.

Make Sure Everyone Gets the Same Story

Perhaps the worst aspect of the media brainwashing is the degree to which the financial, political and religious elite are able to coordinate and synchronize the various newspaper and T..V networks. Press releases are the epitome of this phenomenon. The average newspaper reader still believes that reporters are noble seekers of information and truth when in reality most reporters stay in their office reading the news wire feed or press releases that have been handed to them by large companies, government agencies or other special interest groups. Reporters are basically told what stories to cover by being given a limited but large enough choice that they do not have to bother looking for new stories themselves. In this way the stories are biased before they even reach the press. In many cases content is also restricted with the popular phrase, "We wouldn’t want to offend our advertisers."

In the world of bin Laden, a different technique is used to make sure everyone gets the same story. News media channels are reduced to one or two or are all controlled by one central source that insures that all news is synchronized and censored. This gives more or less the same result of the press release method of the Western media, but in a more obvious way. However, Americans are not immune to the same technique. Since the 1920’s, the number of cities with at least two daily newspapers has dropped from over 500 to 19.

Playing Down the Facts

Many times the facts in an issue are downplayed. When Osama bin Laden calls Americans “Satans” and points out the obvious proof of their immorality on films and television shows he downplays the fact that many Americans are actually very religious and moral in character, that American films do not represent the morals of American people and that, in addition, many Americans are dedicated Muslims.

The American government is also famous for downplaying facts. The American government and media branded as terrorists those Iranians that were holding the American hostages in the 1970s. But few Americans either know or remember that the hostages were taken in desperation, as a bargaining tool to get back the billions of dollars that the U.S. helped the Shah to "REMOVE" from Iran when he was thrown out by his own countrymen. Moreover, it is not well remembered that the Shah only came to power in the first place due to the covert activities of the CIA chief Allen Dulles, and his brother John Foster Dulles who was Secretary of State. The CIA covertly funded terrorist street gangs in Iran to carry out operations that purposely led to the overthrow in 1953 of the then ruling premier of Iran, Dr. Mussadegh, who was not pro-American.

Although the truth is usually eventually leaked out on all fronts, the rule of first impressions has already left its indelible mark and the truth is usually greatly weakened or discarded by the time it is discovered.

So what is the solution when we, as well as our children are being brainwashed in the schools, through TV and radio and even in our mosques and churches? Experts on cult science and brainwashing suggest that the number one weapon against brainwashing is awareness that it is taking place and the effort to gather ones own information. They suggest:

1. Reduce exposure to news. Watching or reading the news on the weekend is usually enough. One can read headlines during the week if they feel the need.

2. Reduce exposure to television.

3. Don’t believe everything you read or hear. Confirm it with at least three varied, independent and documented sources before you take it as a truth. In this new age of information this is not as hard as it sounds. (BTW the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) told us that hearing is not the same as seeing)

4. Don’t pass on e-mail messages until you can document their authenticity. This new forum for brainwashing has become rampant with photo-manipulation, folk-tales and lies. Many are documented at special research sites, but even the proven hoaxes are still circulated on a daily basis doing their damage. (Oh yeah Please )

5. Be aware of the techniques being used on you. This simple awareness can often short-circuit many efforts.

6. Don’t think anyone is immune. Brainwashing can even be used in the sermons after the Friday Prayer or by a friend who sends you daily or weekly e-mail updates. The person may not even know they are using brainwashing techniques. In some cases they have been so affected by them themselves that they now naturally employ them as a matter of normal communication.

As Muslims we know that one of the prime users of the brainwashing technique is the shaitan (devil). To combat his ploys we need only to recognize them and pray that we do not fall victim to them ourselves.

[Arifa]

What are Subliminal Messages

A subliminal message is a signal or message designed to pass below (sub) the normal limits of perception. For example it might be inaudible to the conscious mind (but audible to the unconscious or deeper mind) or might be an image transmitted briefly and unperceived consciously and yet perceived unconsciously. This definition assumes a division between conscious and unconscious which may be misleading; it may be more true to suggest that the subliminal message (sound or image) is perceived by deeper parts of what is a single integrated mind.

Subliminal messages gain their potential influence/power from the fact that they may be able to cirumvent the critical functions of the conscious mind, and it has often been argued that subliminal suggestions are therefore potentially more powerful than ordinary suggestions. This route to influence or persuasion would be akin to auto-suggestion or hypnosis wherein the subject is encouraged to be (or somehow induced to be) relaxed so that suggestions are directed to deeper parts of the mind; some observers have argued that the unconscious mind is incapable of critical refusal of hypnotic or subliminal suggestions. Research findings do not support the conclusion that subliminal suggestions are peculiarly powerful. Although many pyschogical studies on Subliminal influence are fundermentally fawled in that they often present the subliminal influence in a limited presentation. That is, over a short period of time a limited amount of subliminal influence is presented to subjects who are then asked to continue with the experiment. Preponnents of the power of subliminal influence will state the influence is generated overtime.

About Subliminal Messages

For example in 1957, a Ft. Lee, NJ drive-in theater tachistoscopically flashed the words DRINK COLA COLA and EAT POPCORN for 1/3000th of a second every 5 seconds over Kim Novak's sensuous face and throughout the movie during a 6-week run of the film Picnic. The subliminal message was the brainchild of NY market researcher, James Vicary, who boasted that Coke sales in the lobby increased 58% and that popcorn sales rose 18%. An avalanche of criticism from outraged citizens and congressmen produced more research on the subject and conflicting results have been bandied ever since

Do Subliminals messages work?

Manufacturers of Self help products will say YES, Scientists and pyschologists will say generally NO!

Why use Sublims if they don't work?

We don't know that Subliminal messages don't work. The human mind can pick out and learn from information that is not consciously observed. Almost all of the psychological studies for subliminal messages used one exposure, not repetitive exposure (which is how we learn). It is the believed by those that create and use subliminal messages that they work. Mind-Fit applies the latest technology to its hypnotic sessions and Subliminal messages although not proven by our standards has stood the test of time and has too much personal and circumstantial evidence to be left out. The subliminal messages in Mind-Fit's CD's are an added extra and are not required to get effects from the sessions.

Detailed Reading

In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Psychology (Vol. 7, pp. 497-499). New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Subliminal perception occurs whenever stimuli presented below the threshold or limen for awareness are found to influence thoughts, feelings, or actions. The term subliminal perception was originally used to describe situations in which weak stimuli were perceived without awareness. In recent years, the term has been applied more generally to describe any situation in which unnoticed stimuli are perceived.

The concept of subliminal perception is of considerable interest because it suggests that peoples' thoughts, feelings and actions are influenced by stimuli that are perceived without any awareness of perceiving. This interest was reflected in some of the earliest psychological studies conducted during the late 1800s and early 1900s. In these early studies, people were simply asked whether or not they were aware of perceiving. For example, visual stimuli such as letters, digits, or geometric figures were presented at such a distance from observers that they claimed either not to see anything at all or to see nothing more than blurred dots. Likewise, auditory stimuli such as the names of letters were whispered so faintly that observers claimed that they were unable to hear any sound whatsoever. To test whether these visual or auditory stimuli may have been perceived despite the statements to the contrary, the observers were asked to make guesses regarding the stimuli. For example, if half the stimuli were letters and half the stimuli were digits, the observers may have been asked to guess whether a letter or a digit had been presented. The consistent result found in these early studies was that the observers' guesses regarding the stimuli were more correct than would be expected on the basis of chance guessing. In other words, despite the observers' statements indicating that they were unaware of perceiving the stimuli, their guesses indicated that they did in fact perceive sufficient information to make accurate guesses regarding the stimuli. Over the years, there have been literally hundreds of studies following a similar format. Taken together, these studies show that considerable information capable of informing decisions and guiding actions is perceived even when observers do not experience any awareness of perceiving.

Another way in which subliminal perception has been demonstrated in controlled laboratory studies is by showing that stimuli can be perceived even when they are presented under conditions that make it difficult if not impossible to distinguish one stimulus from another stimulus. The classic studies were conducted in the 1970s by the British psychologist Anthony Marcel. These experiments were based on previous findings indicating that a decision regarding a stimulus is facilitated or primed when the stimulus follows a related stimulus. For example, if an observer is asked to classify a letter string as either a word (e.g., doctor, bread) or a nonword (e.g., tocdor, dreab), a letter string such as the word doctor will be classified as a word faster when it follows a semantically related word (e.g., nurse) than when it follows a semantically non-related word (e.g., butter). Marcel found that words facilitated or primed subsequent word/nonword decisions to letter strings even when the words were presented under conditions that made it difficult if not impossible for the observers to distinguish when the words were present from when the words were absent. Since the time of Marcel's original experiments, there have been many other studies that have used similar methods. Not only have these studies confirmed Marcel's original findings, but they have shown that other stimuli such as pictures, faces, and spoken words can also facilitate subsequent decisions when they are presented under conditions that make it difficult to discriminate one stimulus from another stimulus. Although questions have been raised regarding whether the observers in these studies were completely unable to discriminate one stimulus from another stimulus, the one firm conclusion that can be made on the basis of these studies is that considerable information is perceived even when observers experience little or no awareness of perceiving as indicated by their difficulty in discriminating one stimulus from another stimulus.

Examples of subliminal perception are found in studies of patients with neurological damage. A striking characteristic of a number of neurological syndromes is that patients claim not to see particular stimuli but nevertheless respond on the basis of information conveyed by these stimuli. One example is a syndrome called blindsight. Patients with blindsight have damage to the primary visual cortex. As a result of this damage, they are often unaware of perceiving stimuli within a restricted area of their visual field. For example, if the visual field is thought of as consisting of four quadrants, a blindsight patient may have normal vision for stimuli presented in three of the quadrants but be completely unaware of stimuli presented in the fourth quadrant. However, even though these patients may claim not to see stimuli located within the "blind" quadrant, they are still able to guess the size, shape or orientation of the stimuli that they claim not to see. Another neurological syndrome in which subliminal perception occurs is prosopagnosia or face agnosia. Patients with prosopagnosia are unable to recognize familiar faces. Although they may be aware that they are looking at a person's face, they are unable to say who the person may be. Thus, prosapagnosics have no awareness of perceiving any information regarding whose face they may be viewing. However, despite this absence of awareness, some patients with prosapagnosia are able to choose which of two names goes with each familiar face that they claim not to be able to recognize.

Perception without an awareness of perceiving can also occur in surgical patients undergoing general anesthesia. One goal of general anesthesia is to ensure that surgical patients are completely unaware of all events that occur during anesthesia. This goal is satisfied in the vast majority of cases because when patients are asked following surgery to report anything they remember that happened during surgery, just about every patient claims not to remember anything. However, when memory is assessed by more indirect methods, there appears to be some memory for events during anesthesia. For example, during surgery, patients may wear earphones and a tape recording of a number of repetitions of a series of words may be played to the patients. If following surgery, these patients are presented word stems such as gui _ _ or pro _ _ and asked to complete these stems to produce a common English word, there are numerous possible completions (e.g., guilt, guild, guile; prove, prowl, probe). However, if the words guide and proud had been presented during anesthesia, then the patients may be more likely to complete the stems gui _ _ and pro _ _ with letters that reproduce guide and proud than with letters that produce other possible words. Given that patients undergoing general anesthesia are unaware of events in the external environment, memory for specific stimuli presented during anesthesia shows that information is at times perceived without any awareness of perceiving during general anesthesia.

Over the years, some extraordinary claims have been made concerning the power of subliminal perception. Perhaps the most widely known claim was made in 1957 by James Vicary, a market researcher. He claimed that over a six-week period, 45,699 patrons at a movie theater in Fort Lee, New Jersey were shown two advertising messages, Eat Popcorn and Drink Coca-Cola, while they watched the film Picnic. According to Vicary, a message was flashed for 3/1000 of a second once every five seconds. The duration of the messages was so short that they were never consciously perceived. Despite the fact that the customers were not aware of perceiving the messages, Vicary claimed that over the six-week period the sales of popcorn rose 57.7% and the sales of Coca-Cola rose 18.1%. Vicary's claims are often accepted as established facts. However, Vicary never released a detailed description of his study and there has never been any independent evidence to support his claims. Also, in an interview with Advertising Age in 1962, Vicary stated that the original study was a fabrication. The weight of the evidence suggests that it was indeed a fabrication.

Other claims regarding the extraordinary efficacy of subliminal perception also lack substance. In the 1970s, Wilson Bryan Key wrote such books as Subliminal Seduction and Media Sexploitation in which he claimed subliminal sexual symbols or objects are often used to entice consumers to buy and use various products and services. One of Key's most famous claims is that the word sex was often embedded in products and advertisements. For example, he claimed that the word sex was printed on Ritz crackers and was embedded in the ice cubes of the drink shown in a well-known ad for Gilbey's Gin. According to Key, despite the fact the embedded words are not consciously perceived, they are unconsciously perceived and can elicit sexual arousal which in turn makes the products more attractive to consumers. Although Key's claims are widely known, there is no independent evidence indicating that embedded subliminal words, symbols, or objects are used to sell products. Furthermore, even if such embedded subliminal stimuli were used, there is no evidence to suggest this would be an effective method for influencing the choices that consumers make.

Belief in the power of subliminal perception to induce changes in the way people feel and act is so widespread that a number of companies have been able to exploit this belief by marketing subliminal self-help audio and video tapes. The companies that market these tapes claim that regular use of the tapes can cure a variety of problems and aid in the development of many skills. Each company markets a number of different tapes. Presumably, what distinguishes the different tapes marketed by each company are the embedded subliminal messages that can be neither consciously seen or heard. Some of the more popular tapes are claimed to help individuals stop smoking, lose weight, or reduce stress; other tapes are claimed to help people increase their reading speed, improve their memory, or develop their skills at tennis (or golf or baseball, etc.). Given the extraordinary nature of these claims, there have been a number of controlled studies designed specifically to test of the efficacy of the tapes. All of these studies have failed to find any evidence consistent with the claims of the companies that market these tapes. There is simply no evidence that regular listening to subliminal audio self-help tapes or regular viewing of subliminal video self-help tapes is an effective method for overcoming problems or improving skills. In fact, there is even evidence to suggest that many subliminal self-help tapes do not even contain subliminal messages that could possibly be perceived under any circumstances by a human observer.

A common theme that links all extraordinary claims regarding subliminal perception is that perception in the absence of an awareness of perceiving is somehow more powerful or influential than perception that is accompanied by an awareness of perceiving. This idea is not supported by the results of controlled laboratory investigations of subliminal perception. Rather, the findings from controlled studies indicate that subliminal perception, when it occurs, reflects a person's usual interpretations of stimuli. Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest that people initiate actions on the basis of subliminal perception. The weight of the evidence indicates that people must be aware of perceiving stimuli before they initiate actions or change their habitual reactions to these stimuli. Thus, although subliminal perception may allow us to make accurate guesses regarding the characteristics of stimuli, subliminal perception cannot lead a person to drink Coca-Cola or to eat Ritz Crackers, and it cannot be used effectively to improve a person's tennis skills or to cure a person's bad habits.