Techniques of Submission
Today man is no longer punished only for his crimes; now, he may be compelled to confess to crimes conjured up by his judges and political enemies. The first goal of the Gestapo was to force prisoners under torture to betray their friends and create new victims for torture. Throughout history, we intuitively understand that the mind can be manipulated and highly versatile in developing means to inflict suffering on his fellow man. Psychology has delivered a new means of torture and intrusion into the mind. We call brainwashing an elaborate ritual of systematic indoctrination, conversion, and self-accusation used to change non-conformists into submissive followers.
The core strategy of menticide (killing of the mind) is taking away all hope. All anticipation and all belief in the future. The very elements that keep the mind alive and alert, in union with his imagination. If the prisoner’s mind proves too resistant, narcotics are given to confuse and pacify resistance. If the body collapses first, stimulates are given, caffeine, benzedrine etc., to induce dependency and to enforce confusion. Forced into mental submission and a state of auto-hypnosis. To bear false witness and speak to his master’s voice, he becomes remorseful and willing to accept his sentence and fate. The brainwashed individual lives in a trance, repeating the dictates and commands of their oppressors.

Pavlovian conditioning teaches us the victim responds to reward and punishment, where behaviour is adopted to induce one and avoid another. Internal prohibition, inhibitions and permission spread over the entire brain cortex, maintained in robotic states of diminished alertness. Speech and symbols become methods of communication and interchange with the outside world, determined by the media, radio and tv. If we diminish the opportunity for free exchange via censorship, we become conditioned to the leader’s ideas and demands. To indoctrinate and condition the masses, feelings of terror, fear, and hopelessness must be installed regularly. The ideal of Western psychology is to train men into independence and maturity by enlisting their conscious aid, awareness and active engagement in the learning process.
The Totalitarian wants to tame men, making them willing tolls without conscious participation in emotional growth or psychological learning. Local myths and rules form cultural rituals and habits where national and racial prejudices are acted out unwittingly. Group hatred often bursts out automatically when triggered by slogans and catchwords. Conditioning occurs within groups with everyday interactions, locality and ancestry, where they learn to like what they are permitted.
The more isolated the group, the greater the conditioning.
Magical thinking is still rampant, even with significant progress in therapy, with the means of medical submission and victory being used to defeat our true purpose. Drugs are miracle cures and fixes, providing passive and magical solutions to their problems, bringing them to a point beyond the boundaries of reality. There is a continual search for ecstatic experiences, where moral controls are too rigid and burdensome, giving oneself up to wild orgies, the loss of power and a sense of union. Sexual inhibitions may disappear, temporarily relieved from deep taboos and frustrations, unburdening unconscious guilt. To re-experience the blissful sensations of infancy, the utter yielding to bodily needs and desires. Participation in mass elation, the omnipotent group, and communion bring euphoria and pseudo-strength as one unconsciously yields to the group’s influence and demands.

In criminal circles, addictive drugs are given to gang members to make them submissive and dependent on the leader to whom he distributed their drugs. The leader demands infantile dependency as he subjugates his flock into mental slavery, injecting pseudo-omnipotence and power into willing victims.
Needing the Truth
Mental intrusion leads to delusions and can indicate early forms of psychosis, where the client has already regressed o primitive magical feelings and thoughts. The whole world is played out in the person’s life and fantasy, and there is no real awareness of any boundaries between I ( the client ) and the world. They feel continually endangered and anxious, unable to cope with or change the mysterious forces determining their lives. In the cases of menticide, the leader plays on the irrational child lying hidden in the unconscious realm. They sharpen the unresolved internal conflicts between reason, emotion, instinct, and defences. The neurotic individual is in a state of 2 opposing forces and needs, which operate simultaneously, oblivious of the working of each other.
The need to be independent/important against the need not to be oneself, not to be anybody impacting the world and experiencing mental tensions. There is a tendency to conform, make oneself small, and be swallowed up in the collective society. To keep one protected against exposure and hostility, I cannot be attacked or humiliated if I stay inconspicuous. In contrast, the resentment for losing one’s personality, feeling alone and anonymous, unnoticed and unwanted. Deep feelings of guilt lie within, brought up by external stress and conflict, where unresolved destructive desires and wishes come to the surface.
The child hates what they love ( parents ), and feels guilty for hating them with hostile fantasies of revenge and retribution.
Every culture encourages certain forms of behaviour and thinking, moulding the attributes and characteristics of their citizens. An object of constant mental manipulation where they weaken the intellectual and spiritual prowess of the individual. The patterns and beliefs of the mind are conditioned early in life, rewarding compliance and conformity. Modern man thinks about the values of the media, celebrities and politicians, having not established enough ego strength to determine his own conscience and ethical values. The very institutions man created to help himself, the exact tools to enhance his life, have all become weapons of his own prison and destruction. Elaborate propaganda campaigns can successfully sell the public any idea or object they want you to buy, a political figure to elect, or an opinion to follow.
All one has to do is feed the neurotic greed of the masses, their need to indulge in private fantasies at the loss of awareness and real values. The masses crave excitement, sensation and escape into irrational behaviour—anything to avoid the truth, self-study and introspection and face the challenges of reality.

Robotic Man
Man has two faces
- One where he wants to grow towards maturity and freedom
- The other wants to stay an unconscious primitive child, always yearning for security, unconditional love and protection
The dictator’s neurotic lust and need for power may satisfy the unconscious child’s primitive desires and fulfil the infantile emotional needs of the masses. The raging internal struggle between the irresponsible child and the mature adult continues until one or the other is eradicated. Eastern culture attempts to offer an alternative, the pattern of participation of the individual in the group, the family and the nation. Not a separate individual but an accepted and valued member who can contribute to the best standards and values of the group. At first glance, the unified brotherhoods are attractive and protected under a unified agency, with minimal tension and conflict. Unfortunately, people are unique and different in their greatness, creativity and imagination, and eventually, we seek ways to express their prowess.
Any form of leadership unchecked may turn into a dictatorship
Where the leaders are responsible for other’s life, needs and desires. Forever suspicious and dishonest, where then the end justifies the means. He denies men’s need for growth and maturity, as he must purge and terrorise the internal raging drives and destroy any dissenting voice or opinion. The citizens of totalitaria do not converse with each other; they whisper, looking over their shoulders for the spy, watcher and gatekeeper. They may make noise and utter polite grievances and repeat slogans to one another, but they say nothing. The citizen no longer knows his authentic self; he no longer feels and becomes an individual with no conscience, personal morality and capacity to think clearly and honestly. He learns as an obedient observer and participant by rote, indoctrinated facts and slogans. Unconscious life becomes dominant over alert confrontation with reality; fantasies reign supreme—a world of delusion, hiding behind a prison. Nirvana is where one’s dreams are fulfilled, repressed to an infantile child that rejects reality.

To change, to be alert to awareness requires courage and a change in patterns, beliefs and morality. The capacity to decondition and undo what one has learned, to empty a full vessel open to new ideas and beliefs. One must lose their delusions and confront their own hostility and rejection of the real world. Learn to be humble, and relinquish their omnipotence and idealised fantasy world. They must tolerate social and personal struggles and conflicts, establish faith in their fellow man and be open to truth, risk and intimacy. To face their fear of freedom, to conquer the panic and anxiety generated by the loss of certainty and security. To build enough ego strength to drop their ego defences, develop the capacity to tolerate frustrations and delay impulses and need for instant gratification. To relinquish the identification with the leader, surrender to the unknown and become an adult with responsibility.
Man wants to take no responsibility with the utter peaceful submission to the leader, enclosed in an artificial womb, with no confrontation or emotional tensions. As the madhouse becomes commonplace, the state moulds his conscience and thinking and rewards his aberrations and perversions. The frightened man retreats into the brutal fantasy of omnipotent power to cover up the inner vacuum. Leaders rule by intimidation, loyalty generated through fear, and loyalty of faith and trust. Fear and terror freeze the mind the will, a psychic paralysis commented to the conviction of the asleep masses. The constant repetition of demands creates conditioned behaviour and response. As one stays in an infantile state. Inner vengeance and hate towards the parent/leader are transferred onto their perceived enemies, the outsiders, the scapegoats of the structure. The more fear in society, the greater the guilt and need for external enemies.
The air of gossip, rumour and accusation are profound and omnipresent.
Drowned in suspicions and paranoia, the citizen suffers from severe delusions of persecution and victimhood. The citizen never searches for flaws or contradictions in his own soul but splits and projects them onto their enemies. The enemy is always planning your destruction, scheming and conspiring your demise. The citizen is permitted to express his primitive aggression and desires, as the leader/govt assumes all the burden of their guilt and justifies /rewards the expulsion of such sadistic forces. Participation in guilty deeds breeds loyalty, dependency, secrecy, and pacts to cover up one’s crimes. The citizen learns to look at the world through the fog of official catchwords with auto-responsive actions and total mythology.

Facts are replaced by fantasy and distortion, trained to lie intentionally, where history and myths are fabricated to flatter their tyrannical leader. The leader seduces the citizen and calms and soothes his inner tensions and anxiety with the use of drugs, enemies or distractions. The citizen can no longer determine the irrational from the rational, cannot believe or trust anything and retreats into a sullen emptiness. An infantile battle between pros and cons, the good and bad, develops into a limited understanding and thoughtless awareness. Magical thinking and purpose with no intelligible meaning of ideas, as the child remains bound in the womb of the parents. They are regimented by rigid, concrete beliefs without access to other opinions and thoughts, unwilling to face reality and comparison. Official words must be obeyed and believed, whereas contrary opinions are denied and suppressed. Freedom, independence, compromise, maturity and objectivity are all deemed treasonable acts.
The more the individual feels they are part of the group, the easier they are open to suggestibility, open to the whims of their tribal leaders. Common unresolved longings and yearnings increase identification with the group and its leader, held together by gossip and infantile relating. No free conversation and discussion, encouraging passive acceptance and compliance. Most people live in a hypnotic trance, daydreaming throughout their lives and prey to mass suggestion. Inflammatory speech and creative oration arouse chaotic and aggressive responses as the leader paralyses the citizen’s mind, obscuring real issues and motivation behind his oration. The leader appeals to their immaturity, the irrational and benign, unable to reason with or gain any clarification or closure. Whether the reaction to fear or danger is immediate or delayed, it usually takes the following patterns.
- Regression – Loss of learned behaviour
- Camouflage and disguise, feign or faint response
- Explosive panic – fight or flight response
- Psychosomatic conditioning – Body takes over
Regression – A more straightforward form of existence working as a primitive state of being. A sudden disintegration and breakdown of functions.
Camouflage – Playing hide and seek, compared to shell shock or battle neurosis. A mental paralysis where one cannot cope with present circumstances. One may take refuge in pseudo-hobbies and interests. The cult of passivity and relaxation, not facing the dangers of life and not being exposed.
Explosive Panic – Mass hysteria manifesting in crying outbursts, running and fighting the streets with frenzied behaviour such as rage, fury and self-destruction. Riots and mass movements with criminal activity increase fear and panic, deepen insecurity and warrant further passive withdrawal and surrender. The built-up inner rage and lack of expression are manipulated and directed into political outbursts and explosive waves of universal panic and rage.

The body takes over – a variety of physical reactions, perspiration, heart pumping, urination, high blood pressure etc. A peptic ulcer and an upset stomach are all symptoms of inner tension.
Living takes us away from the dreams of being protected and demands we expose our weaknesses; it robs us of our childhood slumber of satisfaction and magical fantasies. We need to take responsibility for loving, being hurt and rejected, as well as being hostile whilst also being affectionate. In the family structure, the father’s influence and strength determine separation from the mother’s natural ties. Will the child be guided and supported to move away from the maternal womb and fantasy into the natural realm and reality? The father brings a third person into the relationship and cuts the psychological umbilical cord of symbiosis. He allows the child to transfer their feelings and expectations to him outside the womb and teaches about social relationships. The child wants their father to become part of their individual world, offering validation, acceptance, and gratification from their mother.
When the father is too weak or busy denying the oppressive world of the child, the child is compromised and becomes utterly dependent on groups—ext sources for validation and acceptance. The child continually searches for the strong father figure, who offers them power and allows them to express their frustration and hatred towards the mother. Ideology and leaders of totalitarian regimes challenge resentment and revenge. The tyrannical leader keeps their inner tensions and chaos at bay and in check, re-enacting the idealisation of the good mother and hatred towards the enemy (bad mother).
Mass Delusions
It is a delusion to deny our dynamic nature, stifle our thinking, and act in infantile ways submitted to authority. A delusion to believe we are rigid, unyielding with no ambivalence, doubt or uncertainty, conflicts and no warning signs from within. When thinking is isolated, it can no longer expand without a fair exchange of ideas, and distorted outlooks follow. The system freezes, becomes rigid and dies of delusions without verification or any self-correction, a limited viewpoint where we accept the most primitive answers to problems. Delusions are difficult to change and correct, as reasoning no longer has no value; only ideology and collective thinking are valued. The feeling of belonging, greatness and acceptance is desired and clung onto instead of personal awareness and understanding.
The greater the technical security, the greater the cowardice and submissiomn
The Paradox of Technology
Technology has removed real challenges which maturity affords us, with man no longer compelled to face his demons, the nature outside himself and instinct within. This leads to mental passivity instead of spiritual alertness, lured into political adventures that conflict with a free society’s ethics. We are hypnotised by the ideas of remote control, false friends and social activities with a false sense of freedom. We are gradually replacing human endeavour and labour with robots and machines, where we lose our sense of accomplishment and worth. The fear of individuality and responsibility burdens and influences our mind and body, forcing conditioning and response. These reactions hinder our ability to solve our problems. Limit us in rigidity and incapacitate us. The person can’t master their emotions and instincts and will bend over backwards to limit their thinking, expression and thoughts. They deny their spontaneity, imagination, and creativity, becoming hostile and neurotic, playing strategic robotic roles without real initiative.

The infantile adult who retains feelings of deprivation and injustice reacts to slight rejection as a betrayal, act of hostility or rejection. A primitive moral evaluation based on disgust and contempt, a tribal betrayal and trespass of the rules. They are one’s own judge and jury, the owner of subjective morality and ethics, condemning treasonable acts. In the political realm, treason is rebellion, sedition, heresy, conspiracy and subversion. The traitor is easily influenced by greater minds and driven by unresolved guilt feelings. They don’t know where their boundaries or values lie, betrayed by their own minds, emotions, and intellectual inertia. The feeling f inferiority arises in the ignorant person, who may attempt to inflate themself via external intellectual validation but lack emotional depth and are easy to manipulate. Unable to grasp the world’s complexity, people are seduced into unstable behaviour and even disloyalty through a lack of comprehension and the need to find all-encompassing answers.
The collective needs constant reassurance that their fellow citizens are loyal to similar beliefs and ideas. However, we have become victims of pathological suspicion, where we reject valuable qualities such as being human beings able to tolerate and embrace differences. We are to doubt and distrust everyone as we accuse others and are afraid of ourselves. Persecution of dissenting ideas. Am unwillingness to argue and debate leads to a new form of betrayal, one of intellectual detachment and taking responsibility. We can not find the road to peace and fellowship with the rest of the world if we adopt dogmatic, intransigent positions. Freeman needs loyalty to the self, his needs and desires, and the right to be himself.
Meerloo.Joost. A.M (1956) The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing, Martino Publishing
