The advances in knowledge about neuroplasticity are exemplified in, e.g., a book titled Mindsight by Daniel Siegel.
The progress in explaining the techniques of thought reform have been explored by scholars like Louis West, Robert Jay Lifton, Edgar Schein, and Steven Hassan.
The reader is now in a position to make connections between these two different fields of study.
For the present purposes, the terms ‘thought control’ and ‘mind control’ and ‘thought reform’ and ‘unethical influence’ and ‘undue influence’ and ‘controlling relationships’ are taken as nearly synonymous, if not entirely so. To avoid, to the extent possible, the use of the word ‘brainwashing’ is perhaps wise.
The interaction between neuroplasticity and thought control can be imagined in this way: consider how people ordinarily learn numbers and the skill of counting. Small children, around the age of two or three years old, are taught to count by repeating, along with a teacher or parent, “one, two, three, four, five, six, seven” over and over again.
The process of learning to count is not only a mental process, but a physical one as well. Neural pathways are being created, and are being reinforced so that they become default pathways.
Later in life, in a math class, students will be taught alternative forms of counting, like “two, four, six, eight” or “one, three, five, seven.” But the “one, two, three, four, five” pattern will remain dominant. That pattern will remain the default pattern for reasons which are physical, not mental. The pattern of counting numbers is stronger because it has been built into the brain: pathways have been created, reinforced, and strengthened.
Each time a person says, “one, two, three, four,” that pathway is strengthened. People are continually counting all types of things in all types of situations in daily life. The occasions on which one counts “two, four, six, eight” or “one, three, five, seven,” are relatively rare.
An ordinary adult will, then, have a cellular structure in the brain which corresponds to counting.That’s why people can count automatically, while not thinking about counting, and while thinking about something else.
If some evil genius decided to mislead a group of people about the nature of numbers, he could form a group, in which people spent large amounts of time chanting together: “one, two, three, four, eight.”
In addition, he would isolate his group, as far as possible, from any situation in which they’d hear the correct pattern of counting.
At first, the members of the group would find this odd. They’d ask lots of questions, and need to be persuaded to explore this new way of counting. The evil genius leading the group would need to articulate rationalizations for this new way of counting.
The more experienced members in the group - those who’ve already been counting in the new way for some period of time - might encourage or cajole the newcomers to try this new way. They might explain how their lives are better because they count this way.
The veteran members of the group could reward the newcomers emotionally, applauding and praising them when the count in the new way. Likewise, failure to count in the new way could meet with expressions of disapproval.
Although counting “one, two, three, four, eight” would feel odd to the newcomers, each time they did it, a new neural pathway would be strengthened. It would feel odd for a long time, but each time, it would feel a tiny bit less odd.
Likewise, the old neural pathway of counting the correct way would suffer from disuse, and eventually grow a tiny bit weaker.
Even if there were some lingering doubts on the cognitive level about the new way of counting, on a behavioral level it would eventually feel less odd, normal, and finally automatic.
Thus, in an everyday situation, prompted to count, the newcomers would get to the point which they automatically responded “one, two, three, four, eight” without thinking.
They might eventually grow suspicious of those who count correctly.
This example strives to show how a pattern which seems wrong and counterintuitive can eventually, despite initial doubts on the part of the newcomer, become thoroughly ingrained in the mind.
The next step would be working out the logical implications of the new pattern. Any task of daily life which required counting would have to be reimagined.
In reality, there are no evil geniuses hoping to change the way in which the human race counts. But there are evil geniuses hoping to instill various political and spiritual doctrines into the minds of innocent people. They do this by building and reinforcing neural pathways.
Even newcomers who are skeptical, who doubt the aberrant doctrines which the evil genius wishes to implant into their consciousness, will find that their skepticism does not prevent the new patterns from being built in to their synaptical structures.
So it is that a belief - what seems behaviorally to be a belief - can be instilled into someone’s mind without consent or full awareness. This principle lies behind some forms of successful advertising as well as behind the more sinister forms of mind control.
Understanding that the implanted belief is a physical structure also hints at therapeutic options to help the individual who is recovering from thought control.
