There's a certain kind of judgement that comes in high-demand religious circles.

It's the "I *could* judge... that would be totally warranted in this situation. But I'm such a good person that I won't. In fact, I may even be better than the people who DO judge this person."

Context: My reflections on my own inner world when I was still LDS looking at women still unmarried by age 24. Then I became that (divorced) unmarried late-20s person. I stopped judging so much after that.

This happens with hardly a conscious word. Just automatic. And usually there's some reason to make the exception. "But I *like* them." Or, "But they're so smart/pretty/such a sweet spirit."

This comes from the juxtaposition of several manipulation techniques: Particularly Elitism, Demand for Purity, and Us v Them. Anyone following the commandments is extra special, righteous, beloved by God and the community. So we all want to be that. But it's incredibly difficult to be that – in fact, it's impossible, because Demand for Purity makes you perpetually inadequate. The best you can really hope for is to *seem* righteous. And you're highly motivated to do so, because the converse of being extra righteous is being wicked, sinful, depraved, worldly. No in-betweens, thanks to Polarized Thinking (aka Black and White Thinking).

The result is that you can only feel righteous in comparison with others. So even though God said not to judge, you can't help it. (This trap is called a Double Bind.)

So you find yourself judging, it feels much better than the alternative (judging yourself), but now you're breaking a commandment not to judge. So you stop judging and feel like the great person that you so totally are... way better than those judgy-two-shoes!

What a mess!

Poking fun at "Perfectionism," as in "Loool those religious nuts are sure not perfect!" is not the easy win you think it is.

I've gotten this type of flippant comment a few times recently when I've been trying to address serious topics to help religiously conditioned folks unpack bigotry (which requires some level of safety).

First off, victims of mind control are abuse victims who have been traumatized. Fine to criticize the harmful ways cult victims act, but our programming runs deep and hurts us too.

Perfectionism is a long-standing school of religious philosophy embedded in American culture, even in secular and corporate American culture.

Outside of very specific situations (engineering, concert piano, competition), "perfection" cannot really be defined, so it is an insidiously high standard that can never be achieved. It is a high-demand religious (and corporate) manipulation tool, and also one used by domestic abusers, to justify punishment and to continually move the goalposts, creating a sense of "perpetual inadequacy" in its targets.

Very not fun.

There are studies on how toxic and damaging perfectionism, as a lifestyle, can be. For those of us recovering from toxic perfectionism, it has caused us serious emotional, mental, and physical health issues, and is incredibly difficult to overcome.

For those of us who were programmed with this pressure as guide to the very way of living life, for which the consequences of failure were rejection for eternity by our families and God, the "lol lol they sure aren't perfect" line is punching down. Honestly, in a triggering way.

Instead, punch up at the bastards who made us believe in this crap. They're the true benefactors, and the true cause of this kind of thinking on such a large and deep scale.

Today in Labor History Today in Labor History April 19, 1943: Albert Hoffman, inventor of LSD, tested his first dose and went for a bike ride. This day is now celebrated as Bicycle Day. “... Little by little I could begin to enjoy the unprecedented colors and plays of shapes that persisted behind my closed eyes. Kaleidoscopic, fantastic images surged in on me, alternating, variegated, opening and then closing themselves in circles and spirals, exploding in colored fountains, rearranging and hybridizing themselves in constant flux ...” And from that date forward, working class people could finally afford to go on a trip. Hoffman later went on to isolate psilicyben, the active hallucinogenic ingredient in mushrooms, which he also enjoyed experimenting with.

Sandoz originally marketed the drug as Delysid and sold it in 100 microgram doses. From the late 1940s, through the early 1960s, the drug was legal and numerous psychologists and researchers began experimenting with it as a form of therapy. Many were willing participants in the CIA’s UKUltra mind control experiments, in which LSD was given to people, most of whom without their consent or knowledge. Cary Grant was a frequent and enthusiastic user. As early as the late 1940s, anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson became enthusiastic about its potential to unleash a new era of peace and expanded consciousness. The founder of Alcoholic Anonymous was also an early user and said that it was far more effective at treating alcoholism than any other treatment he knew of. Researcher John Lily, along with Gregory Bateson, began dosing dolphins in the early 1960s, in experiments connected with the U.S. military, in an attempt to learn to communicate with the animals and deploy them as weapons in the cold war. You can read more about Mead and Bateson’s role in promoting hallucinogens and in collaborating with the military and intelligence communities in Benjamin Breen’s book, Tripping on Utopia.

Along the lines of what I've been saying about asking questions, being curious and promoting curiosity, avoiding talking points, and sticking to core values in discussion.

This applies to political dogma as well.

"The only thing that can get someone to think critically about their dogma is to think about their foundation for the dogmas, which is their sense of themselves, their worldview, and their social identities that are important to them."

(Probably paraphrased slightly.)

https://youtu.be/lzr_1jEkq7Y

Today in Labor History April 13, 1953: CIA Director Allen Dulles launched the MKUltra mind control program. The program ran from 1953 to 1973. It involved giving human subjects LSD and other drugs, often without their knowledge. Then, researchers would try to “weaken” their minds and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture. Over 7,000 U.S. war veterans were unwitting test subjects, as well as many Canadian and U.S. civilians. The program was a continuation of Nazi mind-control experiments, which utilized mescaline against Jews and Soviet prisoners, hoping it could be exploited as a “truth” serum. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor of the CIA, recruited many of these Nazi torturers in the wake of World War II to exploit their knowledge and research. MKUltra was headed by Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, who later devised plans to kill Fidel Castro with an exploding cigar, and saturating his shoes with radioactive thallium to make his beard fall out. He also tried to assassinate Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of Congo, with poison. Several well-known liberals and radicals knowingly participated in MKUltra and its OSS predecessors, either as test subjects (e.g., Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Hunter), or as researchers (e.g., anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson). Others who have been alleged to have been victims or volunteers include Sirhan Sirhan, Ted Kaczyinski, Charles Manson, and Whitey Bulger.

For a really fascinating look at Margaret Mead's and Gregory Bateson’s exploration with hallucinogens and their connection to MKUltra, check out the recent book, Tripping on Utopia, by Benjamin Breen. And for a truly amazing documentary on the 1961 CIA-supported coup in Congo, check out the 2024 documentary, “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat.” But the film is really about so much more than the coup. It covers Cold War machinations, propaganda, and covert operations in the early 1960s; the superpowers’ jockeying for control of puppet regimes and spheres of influence in the global south; the Pan-African movement; racism in the U.S., the Civil Rights movement, and the repression against it; and, of course, jazz music, including tons of interviews and live footage of Lumumba, Ghanian president and revolutionary Kwame Nkrumah, activist and writer Andree Madeleine Blouin, Malcolm X, Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Miriam Makeba, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, surrealist artist Rene Magritte.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #cia #mindcontrol #torture #lsd #mkultra #castro #nazis #oss #allenginsberg #lumumba #malcolmx #coltrane #jazz #imperialism #kenkesey #margaretmead #charlesmanson #mescaline #castro #soviet #coldwar #books #nonfiction #ussr #communism #film #documentary @bookstadon

Of course your metadata is weaponized to influence and control you.

It’s the whole ball game now.

#MindControl
#TechnoFascism
https://mastodon.social/@wendysiegelman/113952413945258231

Die @zdfmagazin Sendung vom 8. November sollte eigentlich ganz anders sein, nämlich über #Mindcontrol handeln, wurde aber vom @ZDF quasi zensiert. Da bekommt der Wink mit dem #Rückgrat dem damaligen Ersatz-Thema eine besondere Bedeutung. #Böhmermann #ZDFMagazin https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/zdf-stoppt-boehmermann-show-ueber-mind-control-110170832.html

Great write-up by @annaleen on the modern history of the pseudoscience of "brainwashing" and how it has been (/tried to be) used for mostly nefarious ends.

We can say this "psychopolitics" is part and parcel of what the great political scientist Richard Hofstadter termed the "paranoid style in American politics".

Awesome to see a mention of Liang Qichao and how his term "xinao" (wash-brain) which meant modernization was usurped and became a negative connotation. He was one of the great early reformers who wanted to modernize Chinese philosophy by seeking a radical break from Confucianism. Pankaj Mishra's "From the ruins of empire" does a great job of his intellectual response to western imperialism in remaking Asia.

First time also hearing/reading about "stochastic terrorism".

(H/T: @DrYohanJohn )

https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/04/12/1090726/brainwashing-mind-control-history-operation-midnight-climax/

Today in Labor History Today in Labor History April 15, 1943: Albert Hoffman, inventor of LSD, tested his first dose and went for a bike ride. This day is now celebrated as Bicycle Day. “... Little by little I could begin to enjoy the unprecedented colors and plays of shapes that persisted behind my closed eyes. Kaleidoscopic, fantastic images surged in on me, alternating, variegated, opening and then closing themselves in circles and spirals, exploding in colored fountains, rearranging and hybridizing themselves in constant flux ...” And from that date forward, working class people could finally afford to go on a trip.

Sandoz originally marketed the drug as Delysid and sold it in 100 microgram doses. From the late 1940s, through the early 1960s, the drug was legal and numerous psychologists and researchers began experimenting with it as a form of therapy. Many were willing participants in the CIA’s UKUltra mind control experiments, in which LSD was given to people without their consent or knowledge. Cary Grant was a frequent and enthusiastic user. As early as the late 1940s, anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson became enthusiastic about its potential to unleash a new era of peace and expanded consciousness. The founder of Alcoholic Anonymous was also an early user and said that it was far more effective at treating alcoholism than any other treatment he knew of. Research John Lily, along with Gregory Bateson, began dosing dolphins in the early 1960s, in experiments connected with the U.S. military, in an attempt to learn to communicate with the animals and deploy them as weapons in the cold war.

Hoffman later went on to isolate psilicyben, the active hallucinogenic ingredient in mushrooms, which he also enjoyed experimenting with.

Today in Labor History April 13, 1953: CIA Director Allen Dulles launched the MKUltra mind control program. The program ran from 1953 to 1973. It involved giving human subjects LSD and other drugs, often without their knowledge. Then, researchers would try to “weaken” their minds and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture. Over 7,000 U.S. war veterans were unwitting test subjects, as well as many Canadian and U.S. civilians. The program was a continuation of Nazi mind-control experiments, which utilyzed mescaline against Jews and Soviet prisoners, hoping it could be exploited as a “truth” serum. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor of the CIA, recruited many of these Nazi torturers in the wake of World War II to exploit their knowledge and research. MKUltra was headed by Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, who later devised plans to kill Fidel Castro with an exploding cigar, and saturating his shoes with radioactive thallium to make his beard fall out. He also tried to assassinate Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of Congo, with poison. Several well-known liberals and radicals knowingly participated in MKUltra and its OSS predecessors, either as test subjects (e.g., Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Hunter), or as researchers (e.g., anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson). Others who have been alleged to have been victims or volunteers include Sirhan Sirhan, Ted Kaczyinski, Charles Manson, and Whitey Bulger. Margaret Mead's connection was discussed in the recent book, Tripping on Utopia, by Benjamin Breen.

#cia #MindControl #torture #lsd #MKUltra #castro #nazis #oss #AllenGinsberg #kenkesey #margaretmead #charlesmanson #mescaline #castro #soviet #coldwar #books #nonfiction @bookstadon

A brief, weird history of #brainwashing

https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/04/12/1090726/brainwashing-mind-control-history-operation-midnight-climax/

#LRonHubbard, #OperationMidnightClimax, and #stochasticterrorism—the race for #mindcontrol changed #America forever.