Dark Persuasion: A History of Brainwashing from Pavlov to Social Media
Page 6 How did she make sense of a world where people could be persuaded to believe rubbish and follow it up with self- destructive violence? Page 7 I still don't know what to call this phenomenon. Brainwashing, coercive persuasion, thought control, dark persuasion -- all these terms refer to the fact that certain techniques render individuals shockingly vulnerable to indoctrination. Page 7 And yes, the term brainwashing is silly and unscientific. No one ever meant it literally, but the metaphor is a powerful one. Page 7 Throughout the twentieth century, governments invested so heavily in research on brainwashing that it has come to be known as the "Manhattan Project of the Mind." Page 8 When the Hale- Bopp comet was sighted in 1995, the seekers felt it was sent from heaven and that an unseen spaceship trailed behind, ready to bring them home. Page 10 As I struggled to understand what happened at Heaven's Gate, I realized that coercive persuasion is heartbreakingly common. Page 11 Prior to the twentieth century, coercive persuasion emanated from two unlikely locations -- dungeons and churches. Page 11 In most instances of twentieth- century brainwashing, one can find echoes of torture combined with ecstatic belief. Page 12 During the Korean War, American prisoners of war returned home, scarred by their immersion in Korean and Chinese "thought reform" camps, and it was in this context that the term brainwashing was born. Page 12 Research during the Cold War proved that coercive persuasion could be a powerful tool, but it required time and patience. Then, in the 1970s, startling accounts surfaced of sudden persuasion among hostages who incomprehensibly started sympathizing with their captors. Page 13 In the context of isolation from outside communication, sleep deprivation, exhaustion, and group confessions, people have been repeatedly persuaded to believe disinformation and to act self- destructively. Page 13 I fear that advances in neuroscience and social media in the twenty- first century will create even more powerful tools of persuasion. It is folly to ignore the perils. Page 13 I wrote this book to trace how brainwashing evolved in the twentieth century and to conjecture how it will develop in the twenty- first. 1. Before Pavlov: Torture and Conversion Page 17 we have centuries of data teaching us that the threat of torture works just as well as the physical torture itself, without the mess. Page 17 The victim tortures himself simply with his imagination. Page 18 We focus instead on the psychological tools that torturers have historically employed in most jurisdictions. Many of these techniques would be incorporated into twentieth- century coercive persuasion. Page 21 interrogators observed that confessions were easier to obtain when the prisoner was exhausted, confused, and anxious from a combination of sleep deprivation and malnutrition. Page 22 the goal was to try to make prisoners feel so guilty that they longed to be punished to achieve eventual salvation. Page 22 "Reassure them by giving them something, some food for instance. . . . Terrify them, confuse them in clever ways. Arrange little ploys to make them give up any hope that they will . . . be able to survive. . . . Don't step up the pressure all the time. Say something like ‘Don't make us torture you or torture you severely. It's bad for your health, and it makes it harder for us to deal with each other in the future.' If they reveal small matters, encourage them to reveal the big ones. Tell them that if they reveal important matters, . . . [we] will be lenient with them." 17 Page 23 In addition to its origins in torture, brainwashing can trace its roots to traditions in religious conversion. Page 23 Brainwashing programs also include periods of calculated kindness to disarm the subject, as well as periods of intense study or indoctrination. Despite its dark components, brainwashing, like conversion, offers the promise of redemption and rebirth into a new social group, frequently after a public confession. Page 24 Both brainwashing and religious conversion rely on strong group pressure. They target people who are exhausted and dejected from extensive self- criticism, doubt, fear, and guilt.... They sense a new beginning with a cleansed life.... These aspects of conversion are the same whether one is converting to a common established belief or to an uncommon new one. Page 25 There were many features common to all the converts. The age of conversion was usually in adolescence or in the twenties -- as will be seen later, this is also the typical age of victims of brainwashing.... Contemporary studies likewise report the transitory nature of conversion.... In fact, there is a constant churning in church membership across all denominations, new or old.... The key is whether there is freedom of movement in and out of the group. That freedom does not exist in cases of brainwashing.... Conversion offers a path out of the thicket of one's current life. It can be facilitated by physical activities like fasting, vigils, drugs, dancing, and intense exercise. It is also easier if new converts distance themselves from the influence of their families and former friends. 28 In brainwashing, we find similar features, but they have been twisted (starvation, sleep deprivation, drugs, exhaustion, social isolation). Page 27 Because conversion was facilitated by the awareness of one's own sins, followers were repeatedly urged to confess their lapses. The confessions could be given orally in front of a group or in written diaries submitted to the authorities. 30 Wesley's [founder of the methodist sect] followers received formulaic instructions about how to structure their confessions. Page 29 Acts 9: 9 plainly states that Saul's conversion was preceded by three days during which he "neither ate nor drank." Page 30 Tanya Luhrmann's insightful book about contemporary evangelicals notes that religious experience is commonly accompanied by periods of silence, fasting, hard labor, repetitive hymns, and isolation. Part I Government And Academe Page 38 Pavlov noted that the severely traumatized were not only exhausted but also suggestible, particularly when they were given conflicting instructions. Page 40 If production declined or the economy was criticized, Stalin blamed it on treason and sabotage rather than his policies. Page 43 Since no one dares to criticize him, Stalin gradually has grown unaccustomed to controlling himself." Page 47 The show trials were the origin of the twentieth century's preoccupation with what would come to be known as brainwashing. Page 50 The interrogators appealed to their conscience as Party members and their natural concerns for their family. If these appeals did not work the powerful next step for the recalcitrant prisoner was solitary confinement and sleep deprivation for weeks at a time. Page 50 The interrogations were unpredictable, sometimes mercifully brief and sometimes going on for forty-eight hours at a stretch. Page 50 The interrogator's behavior and demeanor were inconsistent. Page 50 Survivors described a semiconscious state after fifty or sixty interrogations and no sleep. "A man becomes like an automaton. . . . In this state he is often even convinced he is guilty."54 Page 51 "The prisoner . . . [is] cross examined until . . . he contradicts himself on some small point. This is then used as a stick to beat him with; presently his brain ceases to function normally and he collapses. In a subsequent highly suggestible state, with old thought patterns inhibited, he will readily sign and deliver the desired confession."55 Page 51 Confessions were readily obtained after bombarding prisoners with contradictory information and eliciting feelings of guilt and anxiety. The prisoners' cognitive functioning was so disturbed by malnutrition, sleep deprivation, and massive anxiety that they readily confessed. By that time, they longed to be punished as a way to obtain salvation. Page 52 Foreshadowing interrogation techniques that would be used in the 1950s in Korea and China, many prisoners had to write extensive critiques of their lives -- their upbringing, accomplishments, and shortcomings. Page 52 After reading the self-criticism, the interrogator would declare it inadequate and order the prisoner to start all over. Page 54 Some confessed out of loyalty and deference to the Party, which had been the North Star guiding their entire lives. Their surrender was merely the next step in a lifelong pattern of self-abasement to the Party. Page 55 Building upon established techniques of torture, the Soviets added Pavlov's insights that severe stress, sleep deprivation, and meticulous attention to reward and punishment could shape behavior. Page 59 Dr. House was a true believer that scopolamine could force people to tell the truth and that it could help exonerate (or convict) prisoners. Page 60 Under scopolamine, one prisoner admitted to certain crimes but denied others. He also named members of a gang that had robbed a bank, something he had previously refused to do. Page 60 The other prisoner, about to be tried for murder, emphatically proclaimed his innocence when scopolamine was administered. He was in fact eventually exonerated. Page 79 amytal could not be relied upon to compel the truth. Page 79 questioning was not successful unless a good rapport had been established. Page 79 Even in those cases, however, high doses of amytal were necessary to elicit cooperation, but the result of that was a loss of clarity and a murky dialog because the patient mumbled or embarked on long, tangential fantasies. Even more important, as the authors pointed out, "Testimony concerning dates and specific places are untrustworthy and often contradictory because of the patient's loss of time-sense. Names and events are of questionable veracity. Page 79 interviews are more productive if they focus on relatively benign matters in the beginning, at least until the subject develops some degree of trust. Page 84 The Cold War, on the other hand, aimed at conversion of the enemy. Page 87 coactus feci ("I have been forced to act"). Page 90 They were graduate students studying in China when they were imprisoned as spies from 1951 to 1955, but there was something decidedly unusual about how they were treated in custody. The Ricketts were told that the purpose of their imprisonment was not punishment but reeducation. They were to use their time in prison to learn a new outlook on life, to reform their thinking through study and mutual criticism.16 Page 90 The detainees were treated harshly and subjected to protracted interrogation and indoctrination. Interrogators told them that intellectuals were not "of the people," that they would come to realize their crimes, and that Western visitors like them were stooges of imperialism cloaking their true intentions behind a façade of scholarship. The prisoners were asked to write long autobiographies, but whatever they wrote was judged inadequate and they were forced to start all over again. Minute discrepancies in the autobiographies were viewed as evidence of lying. Page 91 You've committed a serious crime and you'd better start thinking about whether it was right or wrong. Now talk it over among yourselves."17 Page 91 After months and sometimes years of such pressure, many confessed and then were freed and banished from China. Page 91 Although it was expected that they would renounce their conversions to Communism, not all did. Page 91 Their views of themselves and the world seemed changed by their experiences in detention. Page 91 Some even found an appealing quality to the Chinese masses working together to build a better world in comparison to the imperialism and racism of the West. Based on their confessions, McCarthyites threatened U.S. returnees with charges of treason, and as a result, many of the former detainees weren't sure where in the world they belonged anymore. Page 92 Lifton coined the term thought reform to describe the Chinese techniques of persuasion. Page 92 In Russia, confession was followed by purge, exile, or liquidation. In China, the goal of confession was reeducation and rehabilitation. Page 92 Lifton likened thought reform to a process of dying and being reborn, characterizing the public confessions as "ecstatic repentance and histrionic remorse."19 Page 92 Lifton suggested that thought reform occurred in phases. Newly arriving Chinese intellectuals in prison were greeted warmly and encouraged to get to know one another. There was a sense of optimism and esprit de corps. Then the detainees were taught about the old society's corruption and shown that they, as intellectuals, had come from such depraved social classes. They were then encouraged to purge themselves of their past to become part of the new society. The Chinese maintained airtight control of this milieu, filtering out what prisoners could learn from the outside world. They demanded purity, confession, and absolute acceptance of their dogma. Page 93 The cadres used language filled with slogans and dichotomized the world between "the people" versus "the reactionaries." It was a recipe that future cults readily adopted. Page 93 In his words, "confession amounted to atonement and led to redemption."21 Page 93 In the end, the thought-reformed prisoner acquired a new identity, but would the new ideas persist after release? Lifton noted that prisoners were stunned when they were freed. They staggered out of China with a haunting sense of sadness, confusion about the world, and lingering feelings of guilt and shame. Most of all, they felt like outsiders in their own culture. Page 96 The behavior of the prisoners during and after their imprisonment was profoundly galling to the U.S. government. What had the Chinese done to the American prisoners to make them confess to waging germ warfare and to participate in antiwar propaganda? Even worse -- how had the Chinese persuaded a small number of POWs to refuse to return home after the war? Prisoners were also denounced for dishonorably dying in captivity. These events became linked to the idea that prisoners succumbed because American culture was weak and too liberal. Then a magical word appeared to explain everything -- brainwashing. Page 98 Edward Hunter, a journalist who worked for the OSS in World War II as a propaganda specialist in psychological warfare. He brought a real flair to reporting and we owe the term brainwashing to his gift of gab and ability to turn a catchy phrase. Page 98 The philosopher Wittgenstein observed that "a new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion."1 Hunter's new word flourished like crabgrass. Page 98 "‘Brain-washing' . . . is the terrifying new Communist strategy to conquer the free world by destroying its mind. . Page 100 HUAC members loved him. They had found a man after their own heart. The problem was that virtually none of the psychiatrists who examined the Chinese scholars or American POWs agreed with Hunter's premise. Page 100 The people who did agree with Hunter were largely other journalists and those who were obsessed with concerns about Communist conspiracy. Hunter's simple message as an expert in propaganda trumped the academics' expertise. Page 101 Allegations about Chinese coercive persuasion tactics were triggered by inexplicable behaviors in the American (and British) POWs who were held by North Korea and China. Page 102 In March 1952, there were reports of anthrax and plague in China and North Korea and also peculiar sightings of insects, even in the dead of winter. Page 102 would have been a major propaganda coup if the North Koreans and Chinese could have tied the Americans to germ warfare. Page 103 From the U.S. side, brainwashing was invoked to explain the fact that half of the seventy-eight captured American aviators confessed to participating in a biowarfare program. The United States vehemently rejected the allegations, labeling them "a tremendous and calculated campaign of lies."16 The confessions, widely disseminated, were repudiated once the flyers returned to the United States. Page 107 That some North Koreans and Chinese did not want to be repatriated was one thing, but what really disturbed the United States was that some U.S. POWs preferred to stay in China rather than come home. Page 108 Most of those who chose not to return grew up in small towns or rural communities mired in poverty. Only four of the twenty-one had finished high school; five of them never got beyond eighth grade. Most came from broken homes, but only three of them were ever in trouble with juvenile authorities. While many had troubled childhoods, others had remarkably quiet upbringings. Page 109 They were volunteers, not draftees. Page 109 Twenty had no understanding of Communism other than thinking it a dirty word. Most had no idea what they were fighting for in Korea. Page 114 Observers acknowledged that this was the first war in which the enemy tried so methodically to manipulate the minds of its prisoners and that the efforts were highly coordinated and focused on demoralizing prisoners. They found "indoctrination" closer to the reality of the experience than "brainwashing." Page 117 Who wants to read well-written scientific reports when you can read superbly written and sensationalist journalism! Page 118 The Chinese were methodical, pacing their endless demands carefully and requiring some degree of participation from the prisoner, no matter how trivial. 55 Their approach relied on what Jolly West called "DDD" (debility, dependency, and dread). 56 They isolated prisoners, depriving them of social support and making them dependent on the interrogator for life- sustaining privileges. Guards imposed a barren monotonous environment. They degraded prisoners by forbidding personal hygiene, hurled incessant insults, and demanded compliance with seemingly meaningless rules. 57 They induced debilitation through semi- starvation, prolonged interrogation, sleep deprivation, and constant threats of death, but they occasionally offered tantalizing indulgences to encourage compliance. Page 118 Above all, they made it clear that they had complete control over the prisoners' fate and that resistance would be futile. Page 118 few of these collaborators actually converted to Communism. Page 119 The level of collaboration did not differ in terms of soldiers' background characteristics like age, education level, or rank. Page 122 The experts dismissed brainwashing as a Gothic horror story, but they did believe that coercive persuasion techniques were powerful and that the United States would need to defend against them. Page 123 While acknowledging that brainwashing was a distorted, hyperbolic term, the U.S. government was interested in discovering new options for confronting the Communist menace. If "they" had the weapon, then "we" had better have one at least as good. Page 125 The experts -- the psychiatrists and psychologists who treated the Korean War POWs -- knew that the Chinese used powerful tools for indoctrination and persuasion, but they also knew that the techniques were not revolutionary breakthroughs. However, those same experts were quite happy to receive grants during the Cold War while the government searched for new weapons. Page 125 The Soviets seemed to want more than just global conquest; with their massive disinformation campaigns and hidden agents, they aimed to undermine confidence in the West. How could the West respond? Page 125 Academia was poised to defend the country as long as government funding was provided. Page 126 MKUltra supported the brightest behavioral scientists in America (Margaret Mead, B. F. Skinner, and Carl Rogers, to name a few). Ironically, it was the CIA-supported psychologist Carl Rogers who warned about the risks of governments using behavioral control: "We can choose to use our growing knowledge to enslave people in ways never dreamed of before, depersonalizing them, controlling them by means so carefully selected that they will perhaps never be aware of their loss of personhood. . . . [Or we] can choose to use the behavioral sciences in ways . . . which will develop creativity . . . ; which will facilitate [individuals' finding] . . . freshly adaptive ways of meeting life and its problems."9 Page 127 Even Ervine Goffman, prominent critic of social norms and controls, was on the payroll.12 Page 130 Carl Rogers joined the board of the Human Ecology group and received funding for several studies on emotion. Years later, explaining his involvement, he noted that he was having trouble getting funded but that after receiving support from the institute, he found it easier to obtain other research support. Page 130 Looking back on this period in his career, Rogers commented that Page 130 he would never again touch covert funding "with a ten-foot pole." Page 179 Torture did not persuade people to adopt different political beliefs, nor did it elicit reliable information. Any number of drugs could sedate, stimulate, or confuse people, but they were not effective in interrogations or persuasion. Group pressures, sensory isolation, and sleep deprivation were promising tools for persuading people, but these required time and finesse. Page 180 Stockholm syndrome. Page 184 Olsson did not torture, shoot, or rape the hostages. Furthermore, sometimes he was quite solicitous of them, offering them food and stroking them comfortingly. As another hostage put it, Page 184 "When he treated us well, we could think of him as . . . God."6 Page 184 The hostages began to fear the police more than the bank robbers. Page 185 In the face of sudden unexpected life-threatening captivity lasting for days, it is striking that the hostages became unaccountably fond of their captors and distrustful of the people who were trying to rescue them. Page 185 The hostages were totally dependent upon their captors, who controlled every aspect of their lives -- where they could go, what they could eat, when they could use the bathroom. Page 185 As the hours stretched into days of captivity in close proximity, both captors and captives started seeing some humanity in one another, and the robbers made repeated small gestures to comfort their hostages. Page 185 The hostages became convinced they had more to fear from the police than from the hostage takers. Page 185 four times as many hostages died in the crossfire of assault by security forces than were executed by terrorists. Page 189 There is a stigma associated with Stockholm syndrome partly because of the lurid sadomasochistic fantasies that are emphasized in the newspapers and partly because the behavior is so bizarre that people think the hostage must have been "crazy." The hostage survivor (or the survivor of rape, sexual trafficking, and abuse, for that matter) is often confronted by cruel questions: "Why didn't you run, scream, fight back? Did you develop unseemly bonds with your captors?" Survivors rightfully bristle at the tactless insinuation of blame by the police, media, and acquaintances. Elizabeth Smart comments: "Nobody should ever question why you didn't do something. They have no idea what they would have done, and they certainly have no right to judge you. Everything I did I did to survive. Page 190 Victims are grateful their experiences were not worse than they were. They appreciate their captor "because he could have killed me and didn't." 20 Sometimes this appreciation transforms into affection. Page 190 While victims feel some appreciation for the perpetrator, many feel the world has abandoned them and that in some way their interests and their captors' interests coincide. Page 190 The hostage thus decides to get along with the abductor and make the best of a bad situation. Page 190 use the word decides with reservations because there isn't a word that captures the complex intermingling of conscious intention and unconscious action. Under continuing exposure to life-threatening stress, some people paradoxically develop more trust and affection for their captors than their rescuers. This constitutes the essence of the Stockholm syndrome. Page 191 They found that 50 percent of the survivors reported some form of positive bond with their captors. Those who had been exposed to more humiliating experiences during their captivity and those who were held captive for longer amounts of time were more likely to develop such feelings. Neither the victim's age nor the presence of psychiatric diagnoses were associated with vulnerability to such feelings. Page 192 The captive focuses attention on the captors' occasional kindnesses rather than their brutality. This can be lifesaving because a positive bond affects both captive and captor. Surrounded and threatened by assault from the police, both captor and captive recognize their joint vulnerability. Captives want to survive but are totally dependent upon their captors. Page 193 The power differential between the two is enormous, and to survive, captives must do all in their power to turn aside the lethal anger of their captors. Page 193 The hostage is in a state of extreme dependence and fright. He is terrified of the outside world." Page 193 Frank Ochberg observed that "brainwashing is deliberate, but Stockholm just happens." Page 198 Patricia accommodated to the group. She learned that if she agreed with everything they said and became a model prisoner, her captors would be friendlier -- and the closet door would be opened.11 Page 199 More tapes emerged from an increasingly radicalized Patricia Hearst. Her parents speculated that she must have been brainwashed to say and do such things, but Patricia fired back over the ensuing months, vehemently denying that she had been brainwashed. Page 201 Tania confided that she hadn't trusted the SLA in the beginning but over time started to feel sympathetic with their goals. She decried the allegations that she had been brainwashed as "bullshit" and said that brainwashing should refer "to the process which begins in the school system . . . whereby the people are conditioned to passively take their place in society as slaves of the ruling class."16 Page 214 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), Page 214 DSM5, Page 214 "Identity disturbance due to prolonged and intense coercive persuasion: Individuals who have been subjected to intense coercive persuasion (e.g., brainwashing, thought reform, indoctrination while captive, torture . . . recruitment by sects/cults or by terror organizations) may present with prolonged changes in, or conscious questions of, their identity." Page 228 The group was led by the Reverend Jim Jones, who had started his ministry in Indianapolis in the 1950s, moved to California, and then took his congregation with him to Guyana. Jones was committed to social justice and fighting racism. He was eloquent, charismatic, and shrewd, but those strengths were more than offset by his other characteristics. He was self-aggrandizing, exceedingly manipulative, and pathologically suspicious. Throughout his career, he lied so often that I wonder if he even knew when he was lying and when he was telling the truth. In the end, he led almost one thousand people to their deaths. How was the Peoples Temple subjugated to Jones's lethal influence? Page 230 "They're trying to get a whole breed of automatons. . . . They [will] put a monitoring device inside the brain, and from a central office, give them signals, or relay signals of what their behavior is."9 Page 233 It is not surprising that Jonestown used phrases like "learning crews" and "extended care units" -- such distortions of language are commonly found in totalitarian regimes. New arrivals were welcomed by a "greeting committee" whose sinister function was to inspect and confiscate belongings, censor any mail or printed material that people were bringing into the colony, and confiscate passports. Another group, the "diversions committee," was charged with tracking down former members and playing dirty tricks to intimidate them. The "counseling committee" paid home visits to congregants, and while "counseling" was part of their job, other parts involved enforcing tithes of 25 percent, spying on members, and approving all member purchases. Page 233 In addition to paying heavy tithes, congregation members gave the Temple power of attorney. In return for signing such documents and deeding over their homes, the Peoples Temple promised that it would take care of its members in the future -- a kind of continuing care commitment. Page 235 The Temple shrewdly donated to support freedom of the press, and as a result had many friends in the media. Page 236 Jones made himself into an idol to be worshiped. He believed that he was the Promised One because he was so good at healing people. Page 236 He pretended to be omniscient, famously sending his confidants to the houses of potential parishioners to spy out hidden details of their lives. Then he would pounce during a sermon, saying things like "I'm having a revelation! Page 236 Such remarkably detailed knowledge was regarded as a manifestation of his gifts of prophecy. Page 236 he fostered a childlike dependency. Page 236 The dependency extended into sexual matters. Jones at various times encouraged free love or celibacy, but he made sure to satisfy his own sexual needs with his congregants. Page 239 "It's better for us all to die together, proud, than have them discredit us and . . . make us look like a bunch of crazy people."28 Page 240 Jones warned the community that the jungles were dangerous -- filled with Guyanese mercenaries, snakes, tigers, and crocodiles. The guards, he said, were there to protect them. Page 241 The tapes include a public criticism session replete with beatings for things like talking too much, being bossy, being late to socialism class, not working hard enough. People were terrorized by threats that they would be tied to stakes in the jungle where the tigers would eat them. The continual screams and moans from the howler monkeys in the jungle added to the sense of danger. Page 241 The nurse Annie Moore wrote her sister Rebecca before moving to Guyana: "You obviously think that the Peoples Temple is just another cult or religious fanatic place or something like that. Well, I'm kind of offended that you would think I would stoop so low as to join some weirdo group. . . . The reason that the Temple is great is . . . because there is the largest group of people I have ever seen who are concerned about the world and are fighting for truth and justice for the world. . . . So anyway it's the only place I have seen real true Christianity being practiced." Page 243 Jones's increasing paranoia was infectious. In September 1977, Temple members armed with farm implements patrolled the perimeter of Jonestown looking for Guyanese invaders (who were not there). Page 243 As part of his intoxication with martyrdom, Jones became enamored with Huey Newton's concept of "revolutionary suicide." Page 244 We were told that we would be tortured by mercenaries if we were taken alive. Everyone, including the children, was told to line up. . . . We were given a small glass of red liquid to drink. We were told that the liquid contained poison and that we would die within 45 minutes. We all did as we were told. When the time came when we should have dropped dead, Rev. Jones explained that the poison was not real and that we had just been through a loyalty test."39 Page 246 By that point Jones had a severe addiction to barbiturates and amphetamines and was abusing so many other drugs that his speech was noticeably slurred and his logic tenuous. Page 247 Dr. Schacht mixed cyanide into a barrel full of Flavor-Aid fruit punch and sedative drugs. He set up a table, lined with rows of paper cups and syringes, to efficiently administer the poison. One could easily have mistaken this for a mass immunization program. The syringes were for squirting the solution down the throats of people not willing or able to swallow it from the cups. Some syringes had needles to inject those who resisted. The guards had guns and crossbows to enforce compliance. Page 248 Bill Oliver testified that he was a committed Marxist-Leninist and that his decision to commit revolutionary suicide was well thought out, that he had been a member of the Temple for seven years and knew its goodness. He hoped that his death "would be used as an instrument to further liberation."47 Page 249 Was it murder or suicide? Certainly, for the hundreds of children and frail elderly, it was murder. For the rest, possibly suicide, but postmortem exams performed on dozens of bodies and other reports suggest that many of the victims had been injected with the poison. This implies that some individuals did not voluntarily drink it.49 Page 252 typical stance of aggrieved innocence. Page 254 Temple spokesman Michael Prokes survived Jonestown because Jones instructed him to deliver a suitcase of money to the Russian embassy in Georgetown. Page 255 "No matter what view one takes of the Temple, perhaps the most relevant truth is that it was filled with outcasts and the poor who were looking for something they could not find in our society." Page 262 Do and Ti persuaded their followers not only to join them, but to sell their possessions, say good-bye to their families, drop their old names, and assume new identities. Page 264 Do and Ti told the attendees that they had come to teach and gather followers who were ready to be transformed to a new destiny, the Next Level, where they would be free from suffering and corruption. Christ had come to Earth two thousand years ago but found people Page 264 too depraved for heaven. Now it was time to try again. Heaven was a place -- a real planet -- and you get there via a UFO. The attendees were told to abandon their possessions and families and to follow them now. Page 265 Slowly, he and his followers came to the belief that the world was filled with weeds. "The weeds have taken over the garden and truly disturbed its usefulness beyond repair -- it is time for the civilization to be recycled -- ‘spaded under.'"10 In other words, the End of Days was coming, and Earth was doomed to be recycled. Page 265 Communal living arrangements gave members a powerful sense of belonging. Like any cloistered group, the residents had rules of behavior regulating external interactions as well as internal thoughts and responses (see table 3). They were prohibited from having any contact with their families and friends. Page 266 All the rules emphasized following instructions and being considerate, modest, gentle, sensitive, and clean. Members were warned against "polluting the ears of others," procrastinating, and being pushy, aggressive, or demanding. Each person was assigned a "check partner" to be a constant companion and watcher. Page 266 Members learned they could control their vehicles by focusing on chores, work, and study but they were never to trust their own judgment, take any action without checking with their partner, or permit private thoughts and distracting emotions. Page 266 From its peak of several hundred members, the Heaven's Gate community dwindled to a small group of about forty believers, most of whom had lived together sequestered in their community for twenty years, having little interaction with anyone on the outside. Page 269 Do and Ti cautioned adherents that they would be rejected by the rest of the world, which would regard them as "duped, crazy, a cult member, a drifter, a loner, a drop-out."17 Furthermore, Do warned, apostates who had fallen away from the movement would end up working closely with government and industry to oppose them. Page 269 The group meditated together, supported one another, and provided a tremendous sense of belonging, structure, and hope. Life in the group was tightly regulated in terms of what television channels they could watch, which books they could read, where they could sit, and what they could eat. All of this was methodically detailed in a "Procedures" book. The movement did not encourage individualism. For their last meal at Marie Callender's restaurant in Carlsbad, they ordered thirty-nine chicken pot pies, thirty-nine salads, and thirty-nine pieces of cheesecake.18 The comet was coming for them. Page 271 As their last day on Earth approached, some members posted farewells on the internet. Page 271 The student felt that the body is merely a vehicle or suit of clothes to hold the soul. Living cloistered was one way of minimizing conflict with outsiders. Explicitly addressing the question "why I want to leave at this time," the devotee wrote: "I know my . . . [Leader] is going. Once He is gone, there is nothing left here on the face of the Earth for me, no reason to stay a moment longer. . . . Choosing to exit this borrowed human vehicle or body and go home to the Next Level is an opportunity for me to demonstrate my loyalty, commitment, love, trust, and faith. . . . There is nothing here in this world that I want. . . . [I am] not this biological outer garment that I am currently occupying."22 Page 272 In addition to these written farewells posted on the internet, the group videotaped exit interviews to explain their beliefs about death and the future.23 Their names on the tape deserve some comment. Page 272 These parting videos provide an unusually vivid window into their thinking. They are not the stuff of a traditional suicide note -- no revelations of depression, anger, or feeling trapped. Instead, the films have an evangelical quality, testifying to the joys of Heaven's Gate. They are beautifully crafted farewell notes to explain the adherents' actions. I found it difficult to select which interviews to include in these pages. They are all unique and poignant -- ghosts' voices clamoring for attention. Page 274 Heaven's Gate and Jonestown both ended in mass death, but as communal movements they were profoundly different. Page 275 The two groups also differed in terms of drug use and personal privileges. In his later days, Applewhite's special privileges as leader consisted only of having a private bedroom. He preached against drugs and followed what he preached. Jones chronically abused stimulants and sedatives, lived in a separate house equipped with luxuries, and surrounded himself with guards. Page 275 Applewhite persuaded his followers to kill themselves in a manner as free of violence as possible -- barbiturate overdose. Jones forced members to kill themselves with cyanide and if they refused, he had them shot. Page 276 A Gallup poll conducted in 2004 found that 90 percent of Americans believe in God, 70 percent believe in the devil, 78 percent believe in angels, 81 percent believe in heaven, and 70 percent believe in hell.26 But nontraditional beliefs are also common. A 2018 poll by the Pew Religious Center found that 60 percent of Americans accept at least one New Age belief. For example, 40 percent believe in psychics and think that spiritual energy can be found in physical objects, 33 percent believe in reincarnation, and 29 percent believe in astrology.27 Page 276 After all, "strange" beliefs are not even statistically rare.28 Page 277 It is foolish to label all new religions as cults that brainwash their congregants. But it is legitimate to ask if and how individuals "become swept away by commitments to charismatic social movements."32 Such analyses must consider how people are recruited into a movement, how their beliefs are changed, and -- perhaps unique to brainwashing -- how they are restrained from leaving the movement. Page 277 It is interesting to note that after the thirty-nine Heaven's Gate members died, some former members killed themselves as well. In some instances, they felt there was a chance they could "catch up" with their peers and board the spaceship. In others, the survivors felt no connection with the rest of the world; they killed themselves out of guilt for not being on site at the time of their friends' deaths and because they could not imagine a life for themselves away from the group -- whether or not they caught the spaceship -- a sati-like despair. Page 277 While I agree that brainwashing is a silly term, that doesn't mean one should ignore how charismatic leaders can attract members, shape their thoughts and behavior, transform their beliefs, and restrict them from leaving. Page 278 We've already established that "unusual" religious beliefs are in no way rare. Even some of the more peculiar aspects of Heaven's Gate have deep roots in history. Page 278 Heaven's Gate, there was no "commandment" to kill yourself; the persuasion was softer but no less lethal. Page 279 Certainly, the Heaven's Gate members knew what they were doing, but they were convinced their suicide would gain them immortality on a spaceship, not a coffin. Were they competent to make that fatal decision based on their leader's powerful persuasion? Page 279 Columnist Frank Rich said it perfectly: "What makes a cult a cult is not its religion, whatever it is, but the practice of mind-control techniques, usually by a charismatic leader, that robs its members of their independence of thoughts."35 Page 279 Cults use group pressures, isolation, and sensory deprivation in ways resembling the reeducation camps of Korea and China. Unlike those camps, Heaven's Gate employed no torture or severe physical hardship; however, there were aspects of the movement that were coercive. Page 280 One might regard such beliefs as "mistaken," but it is dodgy to consider them "delusional." Page 280 Most religions teach doctrines that are nonfalsifiable; that is, after all, another way of defining "faith." Page 281 Delusions are fixed beliefs that are unchangeable even in the face of conflicting evidence. Page 281 Delusions are common in schizophrenia but can occur in other psychiatric disorders, in hostage situations, and instances of sleep deprivation and sensory isolation. Page 281 wish I could say there was a clear distinction between a belief and an inflexibly held opinion. There isn't. Page 281 Some of us are dogmatic, but that is not the same thing as being delusional. Page 281 Thirty-six percent of Americans believe that it was "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that 9/11 happened because governmental officials wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East.39 Page 282 Strong beliefs are different from the inflexible beliefs of delusion. Deluded people live in a black-and-white world with no shades of gray. They jump to conclusions and look only for evidence that supports their beliefs; they simply dismiss contradictory evidence. Page 282 Delusions tend to be long lasting, but they do vary in intensity.40 Delusions can be deemed bizarre on objective grounds (for example, that I can fly), cultural grounds (such as a departure from consensually shared views of reality), or individual grounds (for example, a change in belief that is startlingly incompatible with the individual's life course).41 But studies have shown that even experts have limited reliability in judging whether or not a delusion is bizarre. Page 282 Our beliefs get even stronger if we associate only with people who share those beliefs and if we attend only to media that preach to our biases. Page 282 delusions can be infectious; Page 282 The most recent version of DSM does away with the French terminology, preferring use of "delusional disorder" for the dominant patient and "delusional symptoms in partner of individual with delusional disorder" for the other person. Page 283 I think most of us come to the conclusion that Heaven's Gate exemplifies not coercive brainwashing but rather a contagion of belief. Page 285 We can, of course, be deceived in many ways. We can be deceived by believing what is untrue, but we certainly are also deceived by not believing what is true. -- SØREN KIERKEGAARD Page 287 Brainwashing goes beyond behaviorism and is comprised of many elements. As Skinner implied, one element entails manipulation and, in some instances, coercion and isolation. Another element is that the manipulation may be so surreptitious individuals may not even know how or even if they are being targeted. A third characteristic is that actions are taken at the expense of the targeted individuals; someone else benefits from the manipulation. Finally, some degree of sleep deprivation is often part of the regimen, leaving the victim fatigued, confused, and suggestible. Page 309 Marketing is a form of mass persuasion. It may be done with good intentions ("Get a flu shot"), it may be neutral ("Shop at Vons"), or it may be against an individual's best interest ("Smoke Marlboro"). While mass campaigns can be effective, advertisers get a higher response rate by targeting the appropriate audience. Here is where social media excels. When people identify their interests and preferences on platforms like Facebook, shrewd marketers can draw inferences from one "like" to another. An individual's interest in something like Scrabble can suggest how to market another product for that individual to buy. Such approaches allow specific targeting of messages to sell a product, idea, or behavior.