The Battle for Your Mind (idea)

Dick Sutphen's The Battle For Your Mind has gained considerable repute across the Internet, having been posted on well over a hundred sites worldwide. It purports itself to be an exposé of brainwashing, though some regard it as pseudoscience. Whether you agree with it or not, this essay will change the way you perceive major social institutions. Read it, make up your own mind, and if you're interested, see http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/TR/sutphen-critique.html afterwards for a psychologist's refutation of Sutphen's claims.

This document is a transcription of an audio tape by Sutphen, who has copyrighted it (1984) for protection against duplication for sale, but freely allows its contents to be reproduced in a non-profit setting. Capitalization, punctuation, grammar, headings, and paragraph breaks remain as I found them. I've formatted and hardlinked the text for the specific purposes of this site. The Contents listed are exactly those given by the author; however, I've linked some to the same nodes in an attempt to make the document more coherent when read on E2.

THE BATTLE FOR YOUR MIND
Persuasion & Brainwashing Techniques Being Used On The Public Today
by Dick Sutphen

SUMMARY OF CONTENTS

• The Birth of Conversion / Brainwashing in Christian Revivalism in 1735
• The Pavlovian explanation of the three brain phases
• Born-Again preachers: Step-by-step how they conduct a revival and the expected physiological results
• The "voice roll" technique used by preachers, lawyers and hypnotists
• New trance-inducing churches: The six steps to conversion
• The decognition process
• Thought-stopping techniques
• The "sell it by zealot" technique
• True believers and mass movements
• Persuasion techniques: "Yes set," "Imbedded Commands," "Shock and Confusion" and the "Interspersal Techniques," Subliminals
• Vibrato and ELF waves
• Inducing trance with vibrational sound
• Even professional observers will be "possessed" at charismatic gatherings
• The "only hope" technique to attend and not be converted
• Non-detectable Neurophone programming through the skin
• The medium for mass take-over

I'm Dick Sutphen and this tape is a studio-recorded, expanded version of a talk I delivered at the World Congress of Professional Hypnotists Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. Although the tape carries a copyright to protect it from unlawful duplication for sale by other companies, in this case, I invite individuals to make copies and give them to friends or anyone in a position to communicate this information.

Although I've been interviewed about the subject on many local and regional radio and TV talk shows, large-scale mass communication appears to be blocked, since it could result in suspicion or investigation of the very media presenting it or the sponsors that support the media. Some government agencies do not want this information generally known. Nor do the Born-Again Christian movement, cults, and many human-potential trainings.

Everything I will relate only exposes the surface of the problem. I don't know how the misuse of these techniques can be stopped. I don't think it is possible to legislate against that which often cannot be detected; and if those who legislate are using these techniques, there is little hope of affecting laws to govern usage. I do know that the first step to initiate change is to generate interest. In this case, that will probably only result from an underground effort.

In talking about this subject, I am talking about my own business. I know it, and I know how effective it can be. I produce hypnosis and subliminal tapes and, in some of my seminars, I use conversion tactics to assist participants to become independent and self-sufficient. But, anytime I use these techniques, I point out that I am using them, and those attending have a choice to participate or not. They also know what the desired result of participation will be.

So, to begin, I want to 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.

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