"If you don't control your mind...someone else will" (John Allston).

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?... Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?... The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 5

1984 was written long ago. For a view of how Orwell's words relate to the state of things in our time there's a 2010 film, available at YouTube: Psywar - "The real battlefield is the mind". The full film (around 1 hour 40 mins) is available, also in 8 shorter bites, the first of which is below:

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Links to the rest:
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The film takes us back, with guidance from some highly regarded historians and philosophers, over past centuries to illustrate the use of propaganda and manipulation of public opinion...mind control...psyops...call it what you will. The evolution of propaganda and public relations in the United States is explored, with an emphasis on the “elitist theory of democracy” and the relationship between war, propaganda and class. This is not a high budget affair; it was financed via a blue collar job, and released online for free. The interviews contained within it are original, conducted by proxy.

Psyops (Psychological Operations), under one label or another, has been a part of warfare, and used by all countries, for centuries. It has included simple operations such as circulation of propaganda leaflets, posters, radio broadcasts, along with many more sophisticated and sinister activities. As well as being a part of warfare, psyops is used to influence populations that war is necessary. Remember those "weapons of mass destruction"? War is one of the most profitable of all events, but only for the power-wielders. Others lose their lives, their health or their sanity. Families are left devastated, on both sides of that divide of manufactured hatred. Not always realised, though, is the continual use of a form of psyops on the population at large by those in power (and I don't necessarily mean a country's government).

One theory put forward in the film is that we are being manipulated because "the power-wielders" consider that "the people" (The Great Unwashed) are not fit to have a say in how countries are run in this advanced technological age. All power, and consequently all wealth, must be restricted to "the elite leaders". The power-wielders choose/designate individuals - candidates - for "election". This gives the appearance that these individuals are being "chosen" by the people. In reality the "candidates" are there only by permission of "the elite", and are there to do their bidding. This process is aided by a coordinated psychological operation using elite-controlled media as its front-line to push forward "candidate du jour" and denigrate others.

"The people" are, from time to time, given tid-bits of help (eg: The Affordable Care Act.) The ACA could quite easily have been of far more assistance to more people, but that would have resulted in a reduced share of goodies for the pharmaceutical corporations. Can't have that! "The people" receive just enough to avoid outright rebellion by the masses. Outright rebellion - revolution - is something "the elite" fear and always plan to avoid.

Quote from a respected philosopher:

Noam Chomsky, Thought Control in a Democratic Society

“If in some Orwellian future there were One Big Owner, he might be benevolent, in his own opinion, as indeed, Orwell’s Big Brother was – in his own opinion. Big Brother let the public see and hear a variety of things he deemed useful – where there is centralized control, it is the One Big Owner who makes the choices…Each year is more likely that the American citizen who turns to any medium – newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, books, movies, cable, recordings, video cassettes – will receive information, ideas, or entertainment controlled by the same handful of corporations, whether it is daily news, a cable entertainment program, or a textbook…Media giants have become so powerful that government no longer has the will to restrain them…Now that media owners are so large that they are part of the highest levels of the world economy, the news and other public information become heavily weighted in favor of all corporate values. The new corporate ethic is so single-minded about extreme fast profits and expanded control over the media business that it is willing to convert American news into a service for the affluent customers wanted by the media’s advertisers instead of a source of information significant for the whole of society.”

Beware Newspeak! My advice: be forever wary of what you read and hear, especially when what you read and hear will aid or profit "the elite". Pause to wonder, for instance, why more stringent (or any significant) measures are not in place to try to slow climate change. It would not profit the corporations and "the elite" power-wielders. Outpourings of manipulative garbage come regularly from what are laughingly called "both sides of the aisle". There is only one side, the corporate side, and no aisle to speak of.

Manipulated Into Illusion....another look at Century of Self

Any thought of manipulation and control of the minds of others is an anathema to me. I believe most people, if they stopped to consider the matter, would feel the same. It's becoming ever clearer that we are not, and have never been, aware that such manipulation has been going on - and for many decades. I wasn't fully aware, other than realising that advertising is a mild form of mind manipulation.

Century of Self opened my eyes. It originated in 2002 as a BBC TV documentary series written and directed by Adam Curtis. The films are also available in DVD format, and used to be available as a set of 4 on-line videos, sadly now taken down at YouTube due to copyright restrictions, though an individual episode or two could still be available there. Unless taken down by the time anyone reads this, there's a set at Information Clearing House.

In 2010, after watching the videos I wrote a long post on their content, with some related astrology. Recently, last week in fact, comments received on posts about the arc of capitalism brought Century of Self back to mind. I decided it's time for a partial re-run as the subject matter of the series is closely related to the issues then discussed.

Series creator, Adam Curtis describes Century of Self: “This series is about how those in power have used Freud’s theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy.”

Episode titles:
#1: Happiness Machines
#2: The Engineering of Consent
#3: There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed
#4: Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering

A brief synopsis of Century of Self then, with clips from a review by Paul Shepherd. The link I had to his review is now defunct, I can find no alternative.

Sigmund Freud's theory of the subconscious is explored, how it has been successfully exploited during the 20th century and beyond in areas of consumer manipulation and social control.

Leading roles:
Sigmund Freud, neurologist/psychoanalyst, born in Moravia, Austrian Empire (now part of the Czech Republic).
Anna Freud, Sigmund's daughter.
Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud's nephew, Austrian-born, influential pioneer in the field of public relations.
Wilhelm Reich, Austrian-American psychoanalyst, pioneer of sexual freedom.

Tentacles of their influence have reached out through many decades, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Focus of attention on "self" and away from "society as a whole" is key.

At centre stage, the starting premise of Sigmund Freud regarding the unconscious: that humans

were motivated more by irrational sexual and violent urges than by rational thoughts, and therefore democracy was not a matter of allowing people to choose for themselves between a range of different policies, rather they had to be guided towards the 'correct' choice by an elite composed of people in command of the theory. People just like Edward Bernays.

Freud's theory was taken up by his daughter Anna, and exploited by his nephew Edward Bernays as a tool of psychological, political and social control, for benefit of Big Business and political elites. The development of marketing techniques, later adapted and modified by Reich's theories was where it all began.

Bernays set to work for major corporations, with one of his most spectacular successes being to help break the taboo against women smoking. He paraded a group of attractive young ladies through New York smoking and bearing the slogan 'March for Freedom'. Anyone criticising the idea of women smoking would now appear to be against freedom, and the numbers of women taking up the habit shot through the roof.

After this success Lehman Brothers and other big New York banks financed the development of department stores, confident that they could use the techniques pioneered by Bernays to persuade people to purchase a range of products that left to themselves they may very well not have bothered with. This period also saw the introduction of the techniques of product placement and psuedo-scientific product endorsement so familiar to us today. All of this dubious activity in the capitalist economy was one of the main factors leading to the bubble which ended in the Wall Street crash of 1929.........

The psychoanalytical theories of Wilhelm Reich also fed into this stream, despite his being a convicted fraudster with some very strange beliefs. Reich argued that the release of orgasmic sexual energy was neccessary for the mental health of the individual and society. After the defeat of the New Left in the political conflicts of the late 1960s and early 70s, Reich's theories gained a mass influence as many former activists turned in on themselves. The thinking now was that perhaps you didn't need to go on demos., hand out leaflets etc., what was required was to change oneself, though not neccessarily in the traditional, transcendental sense. A myriad groups emerged, all promising that they had the correct technique for the re-discovery and re-moulding of the Self.

A blend of techniques arising from the ideas of Freud, Bernays and Reich remains in place, both in business and, more importantly and dangerously, in politics today.

It's hard to understand how such long-term influence has been able to take a hold in a diverse and vast country such as the USA and a small but historically independent one like the UK.

I guess I ought to suggest here that, at the start, there may have been no ulterior motive involved, simply a genuine attempt to construct a better system by those who believed they had superior intellects. Were those people making decisions fit to be the deciders? Is anybody? Eventually a different agenda surfaced, one far removed from the good of society.

In my original post I went on to look at natal charts of the Freuds, Bernays and Reich, and came to the conclusion that a common denominator was found: links to Scorpio and Pluto/Neptune: powerful, deep, long-lasting elements, motive hidden from view, dark and often paranoid. Sex, also connected to Pluto/Scorpio was involved too, via the theories of Reich.

If we are in the midst of a decline now it is due to a serious lack of integrity in certain individuals. Astrologically those individuals shared some of the most powerfully dark zodiacal and planetary "flavours".

The truly unconscionable element in all of this, to me, is the notion that any individual(s) should have power to secretly dictate, manipulate minds, in such a way as to benefit one section of society over another section....or for any reason whatever. This hidden manipulation worked in tandem with the growth of capitalism. The public is not to blame for what happened in the past, and what still happens today. The public is, in fact, victim of a near atrocity in my view. We need to take control of our own minds, or others will be ready to do it for us.