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Joost A.M. Meerloo Biography

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“Pavlov formulated his findings into a general rule in which the speed of learning positively correlated with quiet isolation. The totalitarians have followed this rule. They know they can condition their political victims most quickly if they are kept in isolation. In the totalitarian technique of thought control, the same isolation applied to the individual is applied also to the groups of people. This is the reason the civilian populations of the totalitarian countries are not permitted to travel freely and are kept away from mental and political contamination. It is the reason, to, for the solitary confinement cell and the prison camp.”

FreedomRightsSocial MediaIsolationTotalitarianismLockdownBanning
Book:The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing
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“In his important social psychological experiments with students, Asch found out in simple tests that there was a yielding toward an ERRING MAJORITY opinion in more than a third of his test persons, and 75 percent of subjects experimented upon agreed with the majority in varying degrees. In many persons the weight of authority is more important than the quality of the authority.”

MajorityErringGroupthinkAuthority Figures
Book:The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing
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“Our leisure time is occupied increasingly by automatized activities in which we take no part: listening to piped-in words and viewing television screens (no portable smartphones, laptops back when Dr. Meerloo wrote his book). We hurry along with cars and go to bed with a sleeping pill. This pattern of living in turn may open the way for renewed sneak attacks on our mind. Our boredom may welcome any seductive suggestion.”

SeductiveLeisure TimeSuggestion
Book:The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing
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“That tone and sound in speech have a conditioning quality is something we can verify from our own experience in listening to or in giving commands, or in dealing with our pets. Even the symbolic and semantic meaning of words can acquire a conditioning quality. The word "traitor," for example, provokes direct feelings and reactions in the minds of those who hear it spoken, even is this discriminatory label is being applied dishonestly.”

RacistConditioningPolitical CorrectnessSuppressionSexistHomophobe
Book:The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing
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