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Mind = Control
Mind control is a perenially entertaining and perplexing topic. It’s one of those things that when you start looking for it, you start to see it literally everywhere - from tv commercials to simple interactions between people on the street. Everyone seems to be consistently trying to influence someone else’s behavior and/or attitudes. That seems to be the essence of what mind control means, although in conspiracy theory it’s usually blown up to systemic proportions. And maybe deservedly so.
But mind control is weird. It doesn’t seem to be the fact that the mind is controlled that is the big deal. Because being out of control is generally seen as being a really bad thing. But so, also, is being controlled by somebody else - which is the big no-no part of “mind control” as a conspiracy theory. No one else should have that right - except you. When somebody else controls your mind, it’s called oppression. But when you transpose the controller so that it’s you yourself that’s doing the controlling, then suddenly it gets to be called “freedom.” What the hell…? Doesn’t that seem weird to anybody else?
If I don’t want somebody else to control my mind, then why would I want to control it myself? I wouldn’t like it if somebody else beat the piss out of me, but I guess it would be okay if I did it to myself, right?
I guess my point is this, then (well, one of several, hopefully): that the concept of “mind” is actually more or less synonymous with “control.” That is, when someone is acting “mindless” we mean that they are acting erratically, without any seeming awareness or control of themselves. Maybe they are even acting automatically. In fact, “conscious” is listed as one of the antonyms (opposites) of “automatic.” Now, I think we’re starting to get somewhere… (Where? I don’t know)
It might be interesting here also to look at mystical and ideological systems whose goal is to dismantle control systems. While they may do this with external action, they also often seem to have a heavy focus on dismantling control systems within the self as well. Does that mean picking apart the inner workings of your own mind? It may very well mean just that according to Carlos Castaneda’s sorceror Don Juan who taught that the archonic “predators” control us not by overt methods, but by granting us their own minds.
For that reason, I wonder if the conspiratorial topic of “mind control” isn’t actually a much more fundamental question of the nature of humanity and consciousness itself…. More thoughts on this later when I regain control of my mind.
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June 20th, 2006 at 10:42 am
Looking to traditional thinking as usual pays off. Suppose we schematicize being along a determined/undetermined axis. At the undetermined pole is the Absolute, the unmoved mover. At the other end is robotic existence, pure consequence, the cellular-automatic computer world: since everything is determined by circumstances external to it, it’s future is predestined and it’s influence limited only to the internal aspects of itself it may itself determine.
Then we have self-delusion and MKUltra both at the relative pole and the absolute pole corresponds to that within us that participates in the undetermined.
The dialectic of the two poles solves nicely (for me) the free-will problem, although a full account would be too much for this comment.
June 20th, 2006 at 11:28 am
If the govt. engages in mind-control experiments that’s a bummer I guess, but the question of internalized control mechanisms is, I think, far more interesting to consider and examine.
Myself, I’m a big fan of Wilhelm Reich
June 20th, 2006 at 11:37 am
We are all interacting with our environment, so I think it is somewhat artificial to collapse the world down to a single axis of undetermined/absolute vs. determined/robotic. (prnsqlr, I realize that your oversimplification is intentional in order to illustrate a point.)
I think “consciousness” (as in spiritual maturity) involves widening your field of awareness sufficiently to understand your environmental context. In the (unreachable) limit, you would be aware of everything and your consciousness would be that of the absolute.
The extent to which you understand your environment is the extent to which you can make choices on how to react. Therefore, the more “conscious” you are, the more “control” you have.
I’m oversimplifying in a different direction, but hopefully I’ve added something to the very good comment by prnsqlr.
June 20th, 2006 at 11:43 am
“Mind control” by external forces is wholly unnecessary. People are so willingly hypnotized that the slightest breeze-stimulus will get them to behave according to plan, and then the most reliable thing is that they hypnotize each other. I liken it to metal shavings on a shop floor. If there is one lone piece, it’s not as easy to magnetize as many pieces in a clump.
I saw this illustrated irrefutably as I drove a major freeway a few nights ago. Traffic slowed to a crawl. I wondered, of course, what was causing it. Then we came upon the choke point.
It was no accident. No police chase. Merely a SIGN. A glowing traffic sign about a road closure that probably affected very few people on that freeway, and yet people felt the need (or were desperately illiterate en masse) to SLOW DOWN so much to read it which should have taken less than 2 seconds as they could have sped by at normal speed.
Anger and laughter ensued in the cabin of my car.
June 20th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
being a hypnotist i am constantly surprised at how easy it is to hypnotise people. i would go as far as to say that ease of suggestability is encoded into our dna as a necessary component of the archetecture of our consciousness.
i don`t know why though.
i am going to begin to read www.bubblesofperception.com as soon as i get an hour or two spare, which goes to the heart of my passion for how we are percieving our reality……….
June 20th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/oz.htm