Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control

Contents

Taylor provides background on the development of the term brainwashing, from its use in 1950 by journalist Edward Hunter and its later usage as applied to the spheres of cults, marketing, influence, thought reform, torture, and re-education. She references psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton's work Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism as a resource throughout the book. Lifton based his research on interviews he conducted with prisoners of war who had been subjected to indoctrination and torture during the Korean War. Taylor argues that the term brainwashing is useful to when used to refer to a more coercive form of persuasion.

She explains the neurological basis for reasoning and cognition in the brain, and brings the point across that the self itself is changeable. She describes the physiology behind neurological pathways which include webs of neurons containing dendrites, axons, and synapses; and explains that certain brains with more rigid pathways will be less susceptible to new information or creative stimuli. Taylor utilizes neurological science to show that brainwashed individuals have more rigid pathways, and that rigidity can make it unlikely that the individual will rethink situations or be able to later reorganize these pathways. She explains that repetition is an integral part of brainwashing techniques because connections between neurons become stronger when exposed to incoming signals of frequency and intensity. She argues that people in their teenage years and early twenties are more susceptible to persuasion. Taylor explains that brain activity in the temporal lobe, the region responsible for artistic creativity, also causes spiritual experiences in a process known as lability.

In the Part I of the book, titled: "Torture and seduction", Taylor analyzes how various parties have used certain techniques in influencing and brainwashing others, including a restriction of individual freedoms, deception, and methods that conflict with one's decision-making processes.

She utilizes case studies including Patty Hearst, the Manson Family, and the mass murder/suicide of members of Peoples Temple at Jonestown to illustrate the neurology she explains in Part II, "The traitor in your skull". In the case of the Manson Family followers of Charles Manson carried out multiple murders in 1969, and with Peoples Temple over 900 followers of charismatic leader Jim Jones died in 1978 in Jonestown, Guyana, after consuming cyanide. Taylor asserts that the techniques used by cults to influence others are similar to those used by other social groups, and compares similar totalitarian aspects of cults and communist societies.

These techniques include isolating the individual and controlling their access to information, challenging their belief structure and creating doubt, and repeating messages in a pressurized environment. According to Taylor, cults emphasize positive aspects of the group over negative aspects of outsiders, endlessly repeat simple ideas in "highly reductive, definitive – sounding phrases", and refer to "abstract and ambiguous" ideas associated with "huge emotional baggage". Taylor writes that brainwashing involves a more intense version of the way the brain traditionally learns.

In the final portion of the book, Part III: "Freedom and Control", Taylor describes an individual's susceptibility to brainwashing and lays out an acronym "FACET", a tool to combat influence and a totalist mindset. FACET stands for Freedom, Agency, Complexity, Ends-not-means, and Thinking. The FACET model is based on Lifton's eight criteria for thought reform, and Taylor emphasizes education and freedom of thought as a way to negate some of these criteria.