Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control [Paperback]

'Brainwashing' is a fascinating and stimulating book exploring the many facets of Brainwashing. It looks at it's history, some methods, coercion in the media and education, the physical attributes of the brain that lend itself to coercion and persuasion, as well as methods to protect yourself from the various influences of Brainwashing you may experience. It is written in an engaging and captivating way and the ideas outlined will stimulate your mind to think in new or different ways. Kathleen Taylor's writing style is very eloquent and easy to read and she makes quite complex ideas extremely accessible. One minor quibble is that the text format is quite small and is therefore hard going on the eyes. It could quite easily of been a larger font. The notes are also very good, but some information could have been added to the main text to good effect. Overall it is an in depth and fascinating book and one that is well worth the effort to read.

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I bought this book after reading a recommendation of it in Focus magazine and am very glad I did.

Kathleen Taylor does a very good job of defining her subject. It's certainly not necessary to have a degree in psychology to understand or appreciate the book although some sections do get fairly technical because there's just no simple way to get the complex ideas across.

Taylor does a great job of highlighting the alarming number of ways in which people seem to be open to brainwashing through various case studies ranging from American personnel captured in Korea to the Manson family and the atrocities they committed.

The book is such a great read because it deals with something that we've probably all been subjected to at some point - hopefully not full blown brainwashing but `influence attempts.' You can't avoid them and this book will hopefully educate you so you are more aware of insidious attempts to control your behaviour. This all sounds very alarmist but one of the main themes of the book is to make us more aware of these attempts so we don't fall for them without questioning. Fortunately for most of us reading in the western world most influence attempts are contained in adverts but obviously politics plays a large role in our lives and the book highlights ways in which political parties attempt to manipulate the populace.

Taylor takes us through the mechanics of the attempts, showing how the people making the attempts at control can subvert our defences and begin to exert more control over us than they really should and she also goes on to explain how, from a psychological viewpoint these attempts achieve success. Very interesting stuff and also very sobering.

The good news is Taylor also provides us with some good ways in which to strengthen our defences against such attempts to control us. Education is paramount - as is not blindly accepting everything that others say - we must learn to question everything!

There's a great deal in this book and it's been well researched and well referenced. A great read for anybody interested in brainwashing for its own sake and psychology in general.

Not so much a 'how to ...' guide to brainwashing, as a 'how to avoid being brainwashed', Taylor's 15 chapter volume is a timely addition to the bookshelf. Presented as being as much a social, as a political method of persuasion, the author puts forward the topic of brainwashing as covering a wide spectrum of human activity, from the overt, deliberate and forceful breakdown in torture chambers, to the more subtle expressions of emotional blackmail from family members and loved ones. Perhaps lacking, however, was any in-depth discussion of the effects of various public media, product marketing strategies and corporate advertising, which are also geared toward the "alteration of a second person's thoughts and feelings". A further welcome addition, would have been some discussion of the value of brainwashing reversal, and torture victim rehabilitation, beyond that illustrated by Burgess' 'A Clockwork Orange'. Taylor's examples of successful brainwashing cover both fictional (e.g., '1984' and 'The Manchurian Candidate') as well as non-fictional scenarios (incl. The Manson Family and the Jonestown Massacre) by way of introduction, but there is little new for the hardened conspiracy theorist to take away from these chapters.

In an attempt to explain the formation, development and cohesion of cult groups, and in particular their members willingness to perform anti-social and illegal acts, Taylor reviews a number of putative mechanisms underlying such conformative behavior, much of which will be familiar territory to both social and cognitive psychologists. But more importantly, the better value of this book may be revealed in its attempts to discuss the underlying neural mechanisms that are involved in the "business of changing people's minds".

At the risk of being regarded another emotional reaction Vs intellectual reaction argument, Taylor argues for a subtle, and I believe real, distinction to be drawn between the contributions of the cortical and sub-cortical parts of the brain in understanding the success of brainwashing techniques. In crude terms, the latter is the more willing participant in following the wishes of another, without so much thought beyond a more (albeit learned) reflexive reptilian behavioral repertoire. In contrast, those more inclined to "stop and think" prior to acting (for whatever reason), are likely to be employing the cortical parts of their brain during decision making, and especially so their pre-frontal cortical areas. The key example presented, (appropriately) involves our current understanding of the multi-layered neural systems underlying human eye-movement control (partly reflexive, but subject to override according to the demands of the cognitive task at hand), but perhaps a revised edition might also include more recent work conducted with ethical dilemmas and correlate action plan decision-making fMRI data (e.g., Greene et al, Science, 2001).

This book nonetheless offers the interested reader both psychological and neurological data to absorb in coming to better understand the processes thought to underlay human persuasion and the plasticity of thinking, especially in situations under which one's thoughts are obviously in conflict with available evidence (the hall mark of otherwise successful brainwashing?). I would highly recommend this volume to the reader in search of a self-defense guide against their being brainwashed, but more seriously suggest consideration of Taylor's "FACET" approach as at least providing useful hints for enhancing one's critical thinking skills. By so doing one might become better equipped to allay the attempts of many hidden persuaders "out there" who are seeking our otherwise unthinking co-operation in support of their activities and influence.

Dr. Tony Dickinson, McDonnell Center for Higher Brain Function,
Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, USA.