Latest / The You Project / #1935 Brainwashing, Mind Control & Hyperpersuasion - Professor Rebecca Lemov

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#1935 Brainwashing, Mind Control & Hyperpersuasion - Professor Rebecca Lemov · The You Project

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  Speaker 1: I get a team. Welcome to another installment of the
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: View Project. I am super excited, and you know that
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: I don't say that very often, so I must be
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  Speaker 1: super excited because I do this seven days a week,
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  Speaker 1: and you talk to people. I've spoken to thousands of people,
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  Speaker 1: and I am excited to talk to our guest today
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  Speaker 1: because I've been doing a deep dive on her. I
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  Speaker 1: listened to her recently on Rogan and went, Wow, wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: I love to talk to her? Wouldn't I love to
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  Speaker 1: talk to that lady? And I'm doing it. I'm doing it. Rebecca,
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the You Project. How are you?
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  Speaker 2: I'm great? Thanks so much for the invitation, Craig.
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  Speaker 1: Well, thanks for agreeing. Thanks for agreeing. Do you want
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  Speaker 1: me to call your prof or Rebecca?
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  Speaker 2: Rebecca's fine, Okay, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Well we appreciate you. Can you give my listeners a
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  Speaker 1: quick snapshot of who you are? Obviously we're going to
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  Speaker 1: do a deep dive into the newest book and all
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  Speaker 1: of your research, but just tell them who you are
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  Speaker 1: if you would.
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  Speaker 2: Sure. Well, my day job is being a professor, and
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  Speaker 2: I teach in a field called history of science, which
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  Speaker 2: is a pretty it's a pretty unique field where we
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  Speaker 2: get to study the role of science, technology, and medicine,
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  Speaker 2: but from a historical and historical perspective and just trying
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  Speaker 2: to understand how these things work. And I teach at
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  Speaker 2: Harvard in that in a department, a small department, but
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  Speaker 2: as trained as an anthropologist, I have had many other experiences.
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  Speaker 2: I've been a yoga teacher and student of yoga, and
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  Speaker 2: I also consider myself a writer and basically a researcher.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I heard your interesting story about so you
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  Speaker 1: still do Are you still doing yoga every day? Like
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  Speaker 1: two hours morning in like an hour morning hour not
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  Speaker 1: or something like that.
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  Speaker 2: I do do the meditation for an hour in the
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  Speaker 2: morning and an hour at night. And sometimes my yoga
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  Speaker 2: practice has been slipping a little bit. But like you,
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  Speaker 2: I have a background in athletics too, so I love
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  Speaker 2: that too.
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  Speaker 1: I heard with interest that for you having that practice
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  Speaker 1: mains you need less sleep. Yeah, how does that work?
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  Speaker 1: What's the science behind that? Do you know?
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  Speaker 2: I don't know the science, and I didn't expect that
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  Speaker 2: to be an outcome of learning to meditate. I've heard
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  Speaker 2: it reported that other people have had this experience, but
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  Speaker 2: also some people have not. And you can't really rely
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  Speaker 2: on it happening. But for whatever reason, I went from
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  Speaker 2: and it's fortunate because I think otherwise had to have
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  Speaker 2: trouble fitting in the meditation. But I went from needing
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  Speaker 2: a good eight eight to eight and a half hours
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  Speaker 2: to needing about six and a half to seven maybe,
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  Speaker 2: which is still I think a good amount of sleep.
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  Speaker 2: It's just the meditation's almost like it satisfies the need
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  Speaker 2: for sleep, or as I think of it, it's almost
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  Speaker 2: a deep birth state that makes me feel rested. So
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  Speaker 2: even when my job, travel or whatever vastly reduces my sleep,
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  Speaker 2: if I can meditate, like while I'm on the airplane
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  Speaker 2: or when I get there, it also helps regulate. I
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  Speaker 2: don't know the science there, but maybe somebody has studied that.
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  Speaker 1: You are like the picture of equanimity, being the calm
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  Speaker 1: and the chaos. I feel like everything that I've read
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  Speaker 1: about you and heard about you, like your life is
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  Speaker 1: pretty chaotic, Your pretty biggest pretty pretty busy. Is that?
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  Speaker 1: So I guess for you to be able to kind
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  Speaker 1: of not take all the mayhem and the chaos and
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  Speaker 1: the anxiety along with you is important, right.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, it's really challenging. I do think what did I have.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, it's kind of a joke at my university
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  Speaker 2: that everybody kind of brags about how busy they are
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  Speaker 2: and how hard it's going to be for them to
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  Speaker 2: find the time to have coffee with you. And this
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  Speaker 2: is and even the students highly scheduled, Like it's amazing
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  Speaker 2: we see each other at all. But yeah, I try
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  Speaker 2: to just create it human condition for a way that
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  Speaker 2: it's enjoyable for myself in different ways, to ground myself
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  Speaker 2: and try to create some calm just because otherwise I
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  Speaker 2: couldn't stand to do to do it.
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  Speaker 1: Are you still supervising payih stay students.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, definitely.
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  Speaker 1: That's how many of those have you got at the minute?
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  Speaker 2: I have about I've got about three for whom I'm
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  Speaker 2: the primary advisor, and then I have about I don't know,
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  Speaker 2: maybe six or seven. Quite a few just graduated. They
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  Speaker 2: do all kinds of interesting things. It's actually one of
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  Speaker 2: the great parts of the job is getting to know
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  Speaker 2: these students. And I really love helping students figure out
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  Speaker 2: what projects sort of suit them and how they're going
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  Speaker 2: to do them. That's been something I didn't expect. So
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  Speaker 2: there's and we're a pretty small department too.
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  Speaker 1: I feel like if you can do your payah Dale
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  Speaker 1: or whatever research that intersects with something that you genuinely
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  Speaker 1: are fascinated with, rather than oh, this is a topic,
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  Speaker 1: I'll do this topic because I want to get a
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  Speaker 1: PhD and the university wants me to do this or
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  Speaker 1: have been pushed in this direction. But like my research,
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  Speaker 1: I'm absolutely fascinated with and so it's kind of exciting
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  Speaker 1: and it's fun. It's not I mean, the work, you
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  Speaker 1: know is hard on all of that, but it's it's
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  Speaker 1: because I'm actually really curious about this, and it kind
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  Speaker 1: of spills into my work. I'm a corporate speaker and
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  Speaker 1: you know, do this every day. So I'm intersecting with
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  Speaker 1: people and trying to understand people and trying to you know,
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  Speaker 1: theory of mind and metaperception and metaaccuracy and metacognition, trying
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  Speaker 1: to figure out how other people see the world and
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  Speaker 1: how they think and process stuff. And that's my research.
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  Speaker 1: Like it all kind of folds in together and this
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  Speaker 1: nice little kind of cognitive soup, you know. I love that.
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  Speaker 2: It's nice if you can. I mean, I think we
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  Speaker 2: do have more choice sometimes in arranging our lives than
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  Speaker 2: we think, and I've often found that it, including myself
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  Speaker 2: when I was a graduate student. A lot of people
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  Speaker 2: feel constrained by this imaginary you know they. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: we all actually have committees that we have to get
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  Speaker 2: our work approved by or whoever whatever authorities. But often
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  Speaker 2: I found that people would imagine their committee saying, no,
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  Speaker 2: you can't do that project, even though you really want
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  Speaker 2: to do it. You have to do this compromise, or
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  Speaker 2: you have to you have to suit the market, or
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  Speaker 2: you have to project ahead what people will be hiring.
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  Speaker 2: But I always think those choices so people seem to
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  Speaker 2: be torn between what they really want to do and
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  Speaker 2: then what they think will get them hired. But it
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  Speaker 2: feels like canceling out just sheer enjoyment, and it should
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  Speaker 2: be enjoyable. So I always try to be someone who
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  Speaker 2: advocates for that doing the thing that you enjoy, because
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  Speaker 2: then you never really lose out, even if you like it.
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  Speaker 2: Took me quite a while to get a job after
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  Speaker 2: my PhD, just because I did something pretty unusual.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I've always felt like that. When I was
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  Speaker 1: in my early twenties, I was working in fitness centers
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  Speaker 1: and gyms, and I realized I wanted to work, but
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  Speaker 1: I didn't want to be an employee. So the last
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  Speaker 1: time I had a job, as in it i was
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  Speaker 1: an employee was when I was twenty six, which was
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  Speaker 1: thirty five years ago. So I've the last thirty five
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  Speaker 1: years I've just been making shit up doc just figuring shit,
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  Speaker 1: just figuring it out. But I think that when you're
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  Speaker 1: kind of what you do, you know, what pays the bills,
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  Speaker 1: intersex with what you like and what you're passionate about
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  Speaker 1: and what you're curious about, then that sense of drudgery
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  Speaker 1: that can come with work or research kind of. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: you know, it's periodic. I guess not every day is
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  Speaker 1: a Hollywood movie or a Disney sitcom, but but you
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  Speaker 1: know it's for the most part. Yeah, I never get
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  Speaker 1: sick of what I do, So, you know, I think
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  Speaker 1: that's that's a bonus. So you've written, You've written a
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  Speaker 1: bunch of books, but your new book is called The
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  Speaker 1: Instability of Truth. By the way, can you understand my
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  Speaker 1: accent clearly? Or am I talking too far?
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  Speaker 2: No? I get it.
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  Speaker 1: I like it, okay. So the Instability of Truth brainwashing,
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  Speaker 1: mind control, and hyper persuasion. I loved your chat with Rogan,
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  Speaker 1: as I said, and that wasn't brief that that was
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  Speaker 1: three hours of my life that I actually enjoyed investing,
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  Speaker 1: give or take three hours.
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  Speaker 2: The thing I liked about it is it kind of
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  Speaker 2: went somewhere like, yeah, even though it's long, I felt
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  Speaker 2: like we got you know, made progress instead of sometimes
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  Speaker 2: you feel like you're spinning your wheels or a long
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  Speaker 2: conversation doesn't pay off anyway, That's how I felt.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Well. The thing is I always say to people,
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  Speaker 1: irrespective of like whether or not it's a corporate gig le,
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  Speaker 1: listening to Rogan or a podcast or a radio whatever
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  Speaker 1: it is, is it good to listen to? Do you
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  Speaker 1: want to keep listening? Like that's the you know, that's
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  Speaker 1: the litmus test. And I did not want to stop listening.
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  Speaker 1: And one because I started listening because I knew I
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  Speaker 1: was going to chat to you, and then I went, oh, this,
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  Speaker 1: excuse my language, this is fucking fascinating, and then I
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  Speaker 1: couldn't stop listening. But it's great. So everyone have a
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  Speaker 1: listen to Rebecca on Joe as well. What does the
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  Speaker 1: instability of truth mean? Like, what was the why, what
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  Speaker 1: was the premise for that?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I was trying to think of a title basically
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  Speaker 2: for a book about brainwashing, mind control and like the
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  Speaker 2: question of whether how this connects to our current reality
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  Speaker 2: or real you know, digital reality and things like that,
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  Speaker 2: social media, and I was so trying different titles. I
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  Speaker 2: was talking to my mom about what the book is about,
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  Speaker 2: and I said, it's kind of about the way. It's
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  Speaker 2: not that we're on truth, but it were, it's an
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  Speaker 2: instability of truth. The truth is not easily available at
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  Speaker 2: all times, and it sometimes seems remote or it's sometimes
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  Speaker 2: it seems really unstable. Is the word I want? And
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  Speaker 2: she said, oh, write that down, and then she actually
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  Speaker 2: wrote it down for me, and then that became the title.
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  Speaker 2: But it's just that's it's just so just basically came out.
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  Speaker 1: Of a conversation, how great is mum?
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  Speaker 2: She's a great Yeah, she's a raider.
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  Speaker 1: Too, So that was, well, yeah, truth is interesting because
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  Speaker 1: there's there's the practical, you know, thing that's happening, the
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  Speaker 1: objective truth. You know, it's like the light turned red.
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  Speaker 1: That's the objective truth. Then there's my subjective experience of
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  Speaker 1: that objective event. So there's my truth. My truth is
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  Speaker 1: the world's against me every traffic light's turning red, this
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  Speaker 1: is not fair. So, you know, trying to have an
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  Speaker 1: awareness of like where where does the objective thing finish
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  Speaker 1: and where does my subjective experience of that start, because
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  Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of us lack that consciousness
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  Speaker 1: or level of awareness that what's going on in my
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  Speaker 1: head is not the truth, the objective, global, universal truths,
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  Speaker 1: but rather just my story of something.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a lot of what we take to
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  Speaker 2: be true is our perception. But it's not that I'm
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  Speaker 2: a relativist or anything. I just think that we are
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  Speaker 2: constantly we kind of create the reality tunnels in which
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  Speaker 2: we live. I think that's an insight that even someone
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  Speaker 2: like you know, the great psychedelic and psychedelic researchers of
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  Speaker 2: the sixties and seventies thought about things like that. But
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  Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of truth to that. Also
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  Speaker 2: in my field. I mean, it's really helpful to be
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  Speaker 2: in a field like history of science, where they actually
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  Speaker 2: have papers just looking at the history of objectivity and
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  Speaker 2: it actually meant different things over time. So in the
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  Speaker 2: seventeenth century, there was no sense that you know, technical
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  Speaker 2: instruments gave you the objective or most exact truth. Truth
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  Speaker 2: was not seen to be something that was exact. It
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  Speaker 2: was seen to be something like if you could represent
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  Speaker 2: a flower through its essence, that would be objective, not
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  Speaker 2: you know, the hyper measure. You know, our focus on
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  Speaker 2: measurement only came a bit later through what they call
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  Speaker 2: mechanical objectivity. So anyway, it's helpful to be in a
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  Speaker 2: field where they think about things.
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  Speaker 1: Like that, trying to understand the mind of individuals and
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  Speaker 1: trying to do science around it, you know, human behavior
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  Speaker 1: and you know psychology, and it's kind of tricky, isn't it,
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  Speaker 1: Because there's it's very difficult to measure and observe other
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  Speaker 1: than like we observe, we don't really observe the mind.
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  Speaker 1: We observe the byproduct of what's happening in the mind,
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  Speaker 1: you know. And even with my mind research, sometimes I go,
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  Speaker 1: this is kind of garbage just in terms of measurement
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  Speaker 1: tools and stuff. You know. You like, yeah, yeah, because
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  Speaker 1: you know, like you and Tiff and I can all
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  Speaker 1: do the same kind of psychological assessment this morning or
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  Speaker 1: our time this morning, and depending on how I'm feeling
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  Speaker 1: and what I've eaten and how much sleep I've had,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I'm going to get completely different data to
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  Speaker 1: if the same person does the same test or protocol
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  Speaker 1: a day or two or three later, we're going to
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  Speaker 1: get different data and then different science. And it's like,
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  Speaker 1: it's a really tricky area of research. I think the mind.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's been my obsession for the past couple decades,
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  Speaker 2: aside from the brainwashing stuff, is really how do we
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  Speaker 2: measure subjectivity? And how has science kind of dreamed of
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  Speaker 2: getting tools that will allow you to actually extract that.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, it's one thing to wear someone or physically
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  Speaker 2: test them, but if you want to take a sample
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  Speaker 2: of their inner life or their inner thoughts, like, how
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  Speaker 2: would they do that? And I got very interested in
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  Speaker 2: things like the Rorshach test or dreams, you know, science
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  Speaker 2: of dreams, things like that which were which were kind
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  Speaker 2: of sampled and turned into scientific objects of study. But
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  Speaker 2: it is a difficult it's a challenge that scientists often
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  Speaker 2: want to take on, or psychologists especially, but often are
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  Speaker 2: it's it doesn't always it's kind of awkward the results sometimes.
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  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts around gratitude? I work with lots
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  Speaker 1: of people who or quite a few people who've got
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  Speaker 1: some significant disabilities and challenges, and when I spend time
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  Speaker 1: with them, I mean when I spent well one. I
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  Speaker 1: love spending time with them, but the volume on my
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  Speaker 1: gratitude is always turned up a little bit when I leave,
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  Speaker 1: because I walk away going I guess I can walk
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Guess what. I can get up out of a chair,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: I can open the fridge, I can turn on the tap,
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  Speaker 1: I can you know, I live relatively pain free. I
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: don't have any massive debt, I'm not in threat. You know,
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  Speaker 1: It's it feels like when we've got things really good,
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  Speaker 1: we don't seem to have the same level of gratitude
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  Speaker 1: as when we lose something and then get it back.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps I think it.
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  Speaker 2: Is amazing what we are capable as human beings of
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: taking for granted, like it only takes you know, several
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: times in my life I've had injuries such as a
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: neck injury, where I can't actually for whatever reason. You know,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: something you're so used to being able to do, like
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  Speaker 2: turn your head, You take for granted that I can
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  Speaker 2: turn my head, lift my head, not be in agony,
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  Speaker 2: and then suddenly when you lose that capacity you and
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: then hopefully get it back, you have incredible gratitude for it,
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  Speaker 2: but we somehow it's elusive to be in that state
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  Speaker 2: all the time. And I notice in myself, I mean, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: my capacity to feel gratitude and to it's kind of
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  Speaker 2: something you have to cultivate, like you're saying in your
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  Speaker 2: work with I think that I think the world provides
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  Speaker 2: us many opportunities to be grateful and also many opportunities
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: to complain, so you can, like I have this phrase
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  Speaker 2: called the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, which I feel that
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  Speaker 2: sometimes it's like a curse that descends on me. I'm
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: walking around and you know, I start I usually start
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: the semester where everything seems full of possibility and I'm like,
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  Speaker 2: I'm so lucky I get to be paid to do
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  Speaker 2: research on the things I want and you know, without
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: oversight to write about it. But by the end of
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: the semester, I feel like everything is heavy and concrete,
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  Speaker 2: and I sometimes fine have trouble having gratitude for you know,
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  Speaker 2: just these things. So I think it is well, noticing
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  Speaker 2: when that happens is a good first step.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's finding the space between the thing that's happening
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  Speaker 1: and us. And also I think sometimes realizing what's changed
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: over the last three months is not so much the
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: thing or the event or the situation or the goings on,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: but me around it and then leading into that, like
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  Speaker 1: what is that about? Even I work kind of a
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: little bit in the personal development space. I hate saying
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: that because it sounds cheesy, but anyway, I do. But
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  Speaker 1: I'm always talking about you know, so much of personal
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: development and self help and all of that is focused
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: on the external situation, circumstance, what I have, what I own,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: what I earn, what I'm getting, what people think, what
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: I look like, all that visible stuff and trying to
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: or having the awareness that I can build all of that. Perhaps,
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  Speaker 1: but maybe the thing that really needs to change is
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  Speaker 1: not all the stuff that people see, but maybe the
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: stuff that people don't see. Because when I'm different, when
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  Speaker 1: I am inherently intrinsically different than my experience of the
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: world is different, right, So true, we try to resolve
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: these internal issues with external stuff. If I have this
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: or do that or achieve that, or people think that,
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  Speaker 1: or I have a million listeners per episode, or if
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  Speaker 1: I whatever, then then I'm going to be X, Y
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: and Z. And then that happens and you're like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: I'm still insecure. I've still got a big ego, I
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: still want people to love me. I feel still feel disconnected.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it doesn't getting the thing you want to
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: be careful what you ask for getting the thing you wanted,
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  Speaker 2: even in the positive way. I mean, it's also another
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: opportunity to realize that it wasn't the thing. It wasn't
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: the thing that you wanted, you actually wanted some kind
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: of internal state. I mean, a simple thing that happens
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: to me, I mean I happened to everyone. Is I
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: could walk out wearing an up for that, like the
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: day before I wore it and I felt awesome, and
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: then I'm We're in the very same thing. But I
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: just feel like I've made a terrible mistake that I
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: don't know. The only thing that's changed is my is
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: my attitude. Probably maybe a couple other factors.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Maybe you donate to get address. After all, Tiff not
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Tiff doesn't do dresses. Chiff's a self proclimbed tomboy. Well,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: tell us about your fascination with all the genesis of
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: your fascination with mind control. Where did that start? Did
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: something happen? Did you have an experience like where did
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: that come from.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Well, I think on two levels. I think I when
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: I published the book, I had to go back and
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: rethink all of this because it's been with me for
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: so long, I think about two and a half decades
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: that I've been Since I was finishing my dissertation. I
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: wrote the conclusion about brainwashing, the last chapter I think
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: it was, and I started to think about brainwashing it
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: because I wrote my dissertation about conditioning and behavioral engineering
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: and the extent to which people can be controlled, or
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: first laboratory animals, and then how that could be extended
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: to people. So I thought brainwashing in a weird way.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: I just thought of it as like an abstract Oh,
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: this would be a territory, or this is an extreme
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: version of unfreedom, yes, where you become someone who's not yourself.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: And I guess I had always been interested in that question,
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: can you become someone? Can you become a different person
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: without realizing it, either slowly or very quickly, which is
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: brainwashing tends to be radical transformation. But in my personal life,
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: I guess it's a thing where my research question also
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: became personal in the sense that I think around that
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: time I fell into like a addiction just just out
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: of some difficult circumstances in my life, feeling like I
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: disappointed my family and just feeling like I had too
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: much to deal with and I would like to check
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: out for a while. And I did, and it was
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: kind of combined with a very negative relationship that was
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: involved with the drugs, and that period long, prolonged period
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: of I mean, it was just a couple of years,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: but still it felt like and it relates to brainwashing
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: in the sense that it became not obvious to me
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: that I would get out or that I deserve to,
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: And so I did become a different person. And then
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: when I did, which was almost accidental in some ways,
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: I broke the spell of this terrible situation. I did
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: feel incredible gratitude, but also it seemed amazing to me
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: that that had happened, you know, and it seemed like
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: that's worth trying, that understanding that would give me some
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: sort of power or help I could maybe it would
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: be helpful or compassion, I guess, for just understanding that
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: this can happen to anybody.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's so interesting because everybody wants to belong
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: as well to a group or something bigger than themselves.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: And sometimes and whether or not that's a church or
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: a social group or a different kind of religious group
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: or like, we want connection, and sometimes in order to
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: stay connected or be part of the group, we've got
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: to conform to a certain ideology or philosophy or way
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: of being or behaving or you know, socializing or worshiping
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: or and then there's all of this pressure and guilt
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: wrapped around. If you don't think like us or be
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: like like you can't you can't question things because we've
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: we've found the truth. So you're here, You're in the
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: middle of the truth, right, So you don't need to
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: learn anything more, you don't need All you need to
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: do is like follow the path, right, and you're on
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: the path, So why would you even Yeah, So I
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: have an experience in a church where I went to
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: when I was younger, which was very very culty, very culty,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: and even now, like one hundred years later, I still
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: feel pangs of guilt when I talk about it, because
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: I feel disloyal and unfaithful, like and I recognize it
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: for what it is, but there's still that I feel,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: you know, and there were not everything to come out
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: of that was bad, of course, but so much coeresive pressure,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: so much manipulation, so much control, and so much like
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: when I was young and quite I was probably an
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: asset to the church. I was young and a bit
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: dynamic and a bit whatever, like I was valuable to them.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: And so then there's just a lot of pressure and
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: manipulation and coercion and bullshit, to be honest, to get
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: you to be what they wanted you to be. And
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the moment that you would ask questions or say look,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: I don't really agree with that, will, they start to
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: lose their grip and then they panic and then the
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: screws get tighter. Yeah. And it's only in hindsight that
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: I can look back and go, oh wow, I was
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: in the middle of something, you know, really very very
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: cultish and controlling and manipulative and in a way mind
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: control because you're actually discouraged from thinking critically.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Right, I mean, they can yeah, I think I relate
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: to what you're saying. And subsequently I've been in various
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: yoga groups that have elements of just you know, what
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: you end up submitting to, even just the idea that
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: a teacher should be allowed to say push you into
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: this position, or you note that then there's a culture
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: around that says this is what's acceptable, and people seem
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: to be transformed before your eyes, and there's this idea
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: that this, oh, this is perfectly. Maybe those other groups
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: are cults, but we're we've found some sort of special
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: route to to you know, personal transformation or whatever it is.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Those things do change you, and hopefully they also give
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: you some really really valuable experience. Because I love I
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: love the fact that the word experience in English means
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: in the in the old days, in the early modern period,
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: it was a synonym for experiment. So you know, we
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: all have these experiences that are in a sense very valuable,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: very valuable sources of information akin to experiments. And I
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: think it's the most valuable thing is what you've personally experienced,
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: if you can, if you can later make the most
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: of it and not sort of beuh not not be
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: stuck in it.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Yes, you know what you learn from it about yourself
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: and about other people. And for me, I look back more,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: you know, no regret. For me, I look back and
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: it's just curiosity. And I think, like the like when
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: you think about it, from when we're from when we
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: could reason anything, from when we could process anything around
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: us as children, as babies until now you and me
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: on this conversation and Tiff is that we've been programmed,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: you know, and influenced and manipulated and coerced, and so
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: my worldview is only partly my worldview. You know, I'm
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: always looking at everything through the Craig window, thinking like, well,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I know better, but most of us think, well, I'm objective.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: And it's like I say to people, you, really, objectivity
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: on a personal level as almost impossible because you're looking
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: through the subjective Craig window or Rebecca or Tiff window
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: or and so everything that I'm looking at is at
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: least informed or influenced or affected in some way by
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: the totality of my experiences until now. And so for me,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: it's like consciousness and awareness is recognizing that, ah, this
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: is just my version of the truth, and then trying
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: to expand on that is the tricky bit.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: I agree, I mean, I think so, I agree that
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: we've been programmed or we are being programmed, and I
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: think that can both that that in itself can be
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: something one wants to break free. And I'll just suxily
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: talked about negative self transcendence and positive self transcendence, and
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: he said, well, you know, it would be ideal if
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: everyone could have positive self transcendence through some way of
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: breaking or programming seeing, you know, being able to think
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: for yourself and free yourself from the assumptions about the
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: you know, the limited nature of the life you should
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: leave or the the what you should accept, because inevitably
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: it'll be limiting. That's what he felt. But he said,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: also there's negative self transcendent, which sometimes also breaks the
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: pattern and therefore is to be valued even though it's
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: a harder path. But also what you were saying reminded
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: me of just this line from Walt Whitman where he says,
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: I am a part of everything I have met. Yeah,
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: which I really like because in a sense, we are
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: constantly responding and remaking ourselves potentially at every moment, so
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: there's some sense there. I think the mistake is to
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: think that we're sort of very autonomous, you know, sort
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: of sealed hermetically sealed.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you like, I think about my beliefs, good
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: and bad, you know, empowering, self limiting. Most of my
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: beliefs I didn't choose them, they're just thereby social osmosis.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: You know, by like when you're ten years old, you
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: have all these beliefs, and pretty much none of them
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: you chose. Mum and Dad chose them for you, or
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: your peers or friends or you know, and so you
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: grow up in this world view looking through this window
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: that you didn't choose, and so it's difficult in the
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: middle of that to realize that that you didn't You
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: didn't build this reality. You're just part of this reality.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: Right. That's why that's why I wanted to go to
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: I thought anthropology seemed like the most interesting topic when
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: I was preparing to go to graduate school. I thought, well,
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: it would you could ask that question, would I be
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: someone else? Is there some essence of who would I
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: be someone else if I was raised an erratically different
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: place at a radically different time. Just that in itself
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: is kind of profound because we are so shaped by
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: our environment.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I grew up in a really Catholic FA family.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Initially that was my first part of religious call, right.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: And yeah, it's like I've said this many times on
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: the show, but by the time I was ten, I
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: knew that there was heaven and Helen purgatory, and I
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: knew that if I died with a mortal sin on
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: my soul. I'd burn in an eternal lake of fire forever.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: And that wasn't even a question. That was just that's
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: what happened. That was like, that's a tree. It was
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: like I knew that as much as I knew what
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: a tree looked like. And I never questioned that because
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: there was no reason to, because all the people I
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: looked up to and trusted and loved, that was the
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: you know, so the idea of thinking outside of that programming. Yeah,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that for some people, maybe that
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: never happens or that never dawns on them.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: I think for some people, I think there are every person.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: I believe every person has invitations too. But sometimes it
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: only comes with uh, with you know, severe grief or
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: something where all of like the loss of a loved
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: one or a spouse or a child, you know, just
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: tragedies often strangely enough, have that effect where it just
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: breaks the program. You see that nothing, nothing was important
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: that I thought was important, Or you see that the
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: thing you took for granted, uh you know, was was
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: actually the thing you should have or might have focused on.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: So sometimes it's those things. But other times I think
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: I think we are uh maybe so, I just I
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: just took this course in at the University of Amsterdam,
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: a two weeks two week course on the history of
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: human consciousness and the psychedelic history of psychedelics research. But
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: really one thing that they were it was quite a
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: formal class, a lot of lecturing, and and these were
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: by religious study scholars, and one of one of the
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: points they were making is we think there are three
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: base human drives, which is what is it, food, reproduction,
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: shelter or something like that.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: But actually there's a fourth which is the alteration of
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: one's consciousness, whether it's in small ways just through an
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: amazing meal. But we we do seem and you can
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: look back as far as Homo sapien sapient, or further
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: to Neanderthal, the different types of human varieties that preceded,
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: you know that they all seem to have this desire
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: to break this kind of narrow the narrow mold of
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: their programming.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: I think it's I think everyone at some stage thinks
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: is this all there is? You know? Is like, is
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: this is all that I know or there is to know?
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: And obviously the answer is not the answers no to that.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: But I think also sometimes when our beliefs and our
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: ideas and our stories essentially form our identity, then anyone
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: who doesn't align with our ideas or philosophy or theology
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: or whatever, especially when our sense of self is intertwined
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: with that, it's almost like they become the enemy. Like
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: when you think about anyone who has really strongly held
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: belief or faith, and you know when who they are
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: is essentially that the idea of well, well, you know,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: this is what I think or believe, but I could
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: be wrong. Well, that's usually not on the table, you know.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: I think just the idea of opening yourself to the idea.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Like I always say to people, I've been wrong thousands
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: and thousands of times, so I'm probably going to be
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: wrong about twenty things today. So the idea that I
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: know and everyone that doesn't agree with me is wrong
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: is really just an exercise in ego and insecurity and fear. Yeah.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: I think that's why brainwashing is an interesting phenomenon because
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: will often mistake it, or even myself when I got
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: into it, You mistake it as an ideal loot, a
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: problem of ideas, someone got the wrong ideas they got
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: bad ideas they got they fell for. They fell for
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: a scam or a scheme or you know, a set
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: a system that is just wrong or is bad thinking,
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: or they weren't smart enough to see through it. But
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: I think some of it so much of it riads
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: on emotional identification, also the harnessing of trauma and of
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: painful experiences in your life. And that's the thing that
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: we often don't see. So that I try to argue
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: that brainwashing is actually something that if you're only seeing
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: it happening to other people and not applying the window
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: to yourself, then you're probably missing the actual dynamics of
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: how it works.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what's the relationship or the insection. I don't know
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: what the right term is. But between the same mind control,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: if we had a hierarchy mind control and influence and
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: manipulation and coercion, are they all first cousins? Like is
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: it all in the same wheelhouse?
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I think I would. I would say that sometimes
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: there are just different words and they have different kind
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: of intensity to them. I mean persuasion, I would take
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: out a little bit. I would say there are aspects
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: of persuasion that are and I even think there's possibly
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: a kind of positive brainwashing or self transformation, as long
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: as it's done with full consent, you can always leave.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: There's not an abusive relationship. And you could say many
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: you know, there are ways that you could put yourself
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: in a very intense situation and be transformed, but anyway, influence.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: There's a guy, there's a researcher named Steve Hassan who's
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: also an exit counselor. He used to be a deprogramm,
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: a cult deprogrammer, and before that he was a member
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: of the Moonies and he is I'm actually backing to
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: him on his podcast tomorrow because I actually know him
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: because he lives in my area. But he used to
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: come guest lecture in my class on brainwashing and he
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: basically he has an instrument called the Influence Continuum, and
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: it's kind of helpful and you can look it up online,
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: but it helps you place identify certain features which would
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: be extreme influence which is pathological on one side, which
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: would be a high demand cult, or a dangerous abusive
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: cult which is characterized by extreme hierarchy, the extreme sanction
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: if you try to leave, also a abuse of a
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: sexual and other types financial abuse, the use of love
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: bombing thoughts, stopping all these techniques, whereas on the other
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: end of influence would be actually more educational in a
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: benign sense. And so he kind of lays that stuff
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: out that you can so you can. I think it's
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: a useful tool.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think not all influence is bad. And yeah,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: maybe there is. Maybe there are some forms of mind
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: control of sorts that I guess. Maybe it depends on
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: the outcome for the individual, right is it. Maybe can
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: there be a good outcome depending on I do think yeah.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: I mean if you said yeah, I would say definitely.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: And this is the thing that's tricky, and all this
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: territory is tricky, and if it wasn't tricky and complicated
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: and full of full of potential problems, it wouldn't be
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: worth writing a book about. You could just write a
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: Wikipedia entry and be done with it, like oh, done
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: with brainwater. You know, it would be simple. But it's
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: actually quite tricky because a lot of people, when they
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: join a group that they would later call a very
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: dangerous or abusive or a terrible cult, at the beginning,
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: they people often feel great benefit and you can see
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: the benefit in their lives, even as they're maybe they're
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: they're bank account might be drained, but they feel freed
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: of their programming. They feel empowered. Even the Manson girls,
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: many people describe them, you know, later in the trial,
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: so I write about the Manson family.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Yes, so there.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: Were several of them when they were observed in the trial.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: People they used the word brandwashing in the trial to
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: convict them and say they had been they were sort
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: of mindless robots, but they were still responsible for carrying
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: out the will of Charles Manson. But in their lives,
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: many people surprisingly would describe them as extremely empowered and
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: kind of radiating this kind of self assurance, which is
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: interesting and not what you expect. And that's what really
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: caught the public when they waltzed into the courtroom seemingly
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: free of any type of conscience, wearing looking like hippies. Basically.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember you and Rogan talking about how when
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: people often, as you said initially, when they go into
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: these cults, they had this transcendent experience, this euphoric experience.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: And I had that. I had that the first time
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: I went to this place that I told you about
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: where I won't bore everyone with it, but it's like, oh,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: you know, it was a moment I thought, I don't
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: know if it was spiritual. I thought it was spiritual,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: but it was definitely emotional and psychological. It was like
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: there was this whole and yeah, I still remember that
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: experience really quite clearly. And you're like, oh, and so
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: even it's funny how that can happen, even in the
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: middle of something that's perhaps you know, not as altruistic
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: as it might, you know, try to.
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: I think that's when it's really fascinating, and it makes
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: it hard when you leave. I think people who leave
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: cults often are it's extremely painful, even if they feel
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: lucky to have escaped with whatever remains of you know,
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: people stand for decades sometimes and they feel drained. There's
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: a guy I wrote about named Ray Connolly who's a
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: really wonderful person I met at a anti conference. He
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: spent thirty five years of his life in the Children
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: of God. But he said, at the beginning, yeah, it
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: was this amazing connections. He felt filled with like a
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: divine presence, He felt connected to others, He felt this
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: love emanating from him, and it seemed it was so
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: obviously true, and that when you leave, it's very hard
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: to abandon those experiences as untrue or as manipulation. So
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: I think you kind of have to. I believe it's
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: legitimate to still value those experiences and just to say
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: it's too bad that they were in a context of
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: someone or a group that was ultimately extractive and trying
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: to steal my vital yeah, my life forces, which is
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: essentially how those groups do function. But really, sorry, it's
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: just confusing. I think a lot of people do really
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: struggle after they leave, too, because they don't have that
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: connection and they miss it.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Yes, and then you know that, like I had some
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: experiences within my time that were great, amazing, like, and
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: so there's the the like the experience is real, maybe
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: the premise for what set me up for that, or
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: maybe some of the stories around you know, But did
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: you ever read or maybe you've even met But Megan
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: Phelps Roper wrote that book, unfollow I.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Haven't met her. I haven't, and nor have I read it,
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: though I would like to. But I've heard her interviewed,
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: and I guess I read an essay she wrote for
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: maybe for The New Yorker about this experience.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, such a good book, so great. I listened to
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: it and Tiff, you had to listen to that, didn't
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: yeh yeah, yeah, yeah great, and you liked it.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: I'll put it on my list.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: No, it's fantastic now something that Australians are not so
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: familiar with. And I know we've got about fifteen minutes
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: to go. So is mk Ultra, which was a secret
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: CIA program that did some testing with mind control and
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: brainwashing and psychological manipulation using LSD and other drugs. And
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: could you unpack a little bit of that, because I mean,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know much about that at all. I've heard
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: about it, but it's not something that we grew up
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: learning about. Could you. Of course, we've got a global audience,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: but probably half our audience a Rossi's so could you
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: talk to us about that?
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure. And it actually surprises me that mk ultra
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: has become a household word in the US, because when
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: I started studying it, it was quite obscure. Also, it's
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: just it's one of those programs that sounds like it
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: sounds like a conspiracy theory that must be made up,
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: but it's actually a very dark episode in the history
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: of the US Central Intelligence Agency, which was quite new.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: So it was one of the first in depth programs
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: that was funded clandestinely by the CIA right after actually
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: during the armistice of the Korean War, so right after
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: World War Two when the os SO, the OSS is
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: the Office of Strategic Services that preceded the CIA, and
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: once the CIA was was formed, initially as an intelligence
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: agency and then quickly it kind of morphed into, you know,
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: a covert operation organization. So mk Ultra arose out of
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: a crisis about brainwashing that you know, hit the headlines
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: and hit and it became a kind of an international obsession.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: These US and there are actually some Australian soldiers who
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: were fighting in Korea because it was a UN coalition
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: that sent soldiers and there were several Australians I think
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: that were caught up in the brainwashing scandal too, So
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: that would be interesting to look into. These soldiers were
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: POW's prisoners of war held for several years behind north
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: of the Yalu River in these prison camps, and many
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: of them had been through experiences that were so really horrendous,
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: at the edge of death, you know, just from starvation
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: and lack of treatment for their wounds and exhaustion and
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: neglect and so by the time they found themselves in
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: these camps, they were they experienced further, they froze to
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: death at night they were packed in, but ultimately they
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: were Once the Chinese took over the camps, they they
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: experimented and tried to see whether Maoist re education would
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: actually work on Westerners as well as because Mao predicted
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: it would work on all humanity except for the seven
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: percent who were resistant to being properly re educated or
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: thought reform. So it turned out that term that term
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: really educated. Yeah, such a noble term exactly he thought it.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: He thought of it as an atom bomb that exploded
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: in the soul of humankind and that but it had
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: to be continually renewed. So they tried it out on
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: these soldiers, especially the less educated, because they felt those
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: were the equivalent of Chinese peasants. And several and at
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: the end of it, twenty one US and I think
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: of possibly a few Australian soldiers decided they would rather
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: not return to their countries and would and they had
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: become communists or at least wanted to try living in China.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: And this caused this. In addition to fifty nine pilots
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: for the US Air Force who made these confessions. They
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: made false confessions to having committed war crimes in front
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: of the news cameras, newsreel cameras of the day. This
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: caused in nineteen fifty three the head of the CIA
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: and the head of the Secretary of State and the
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: President of the US to secretly fund a program called
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: mk Ultra, which took hold in nineteen fifty three. They
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: developed this elaborate structure to fund it secretly through these
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: cutout organizations. In my research, I've discovered several that nobody
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: really knew about before. And their research covered one hundred
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: something like one hundred and forty nine sub projects. And
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: they specialized in sort of combinations of dragging people, including
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: with LSD pushing into extreme sleeplessness, and also using hypnosis,
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: and then combining the three of those and with many
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: other techniques to see whether a human being could be
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: basically alienated from themselves sufficiently to perhaps become a Manchurian candidate,
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: meaning they could they would carry out a mission without knowing,
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: without having any memory of it, Like could you turn
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: somebody into basically losing could you get somebody to lose
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: their agency completely? And become alienated from themselves and so
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: dissociated that with a snap of the fingers, they would
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: go into that state and then they would come back
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: when you wanted them to, and they would have no
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: memory of what they had done, perhaps assassinations, things like that.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: So this was a really dark program. Many, you know,
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: people died as a result of it, and later the
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: CIA discontinued it in about ten there was about ten years.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: Did the subjects or the people who were being who
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: were used within the program, did they realize Rebecca what
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: they were getting into or were they misled?
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: Well, the subjects mostly didn't know that they were in
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: this program. No, I mean they were sometimes mental patients.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Sometimes they were mostly people who had no legal recourse
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: against what was the experiments being done in them. The scientists,
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: some of them knew very well, some of them were witting,
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: or some of them knew, but they they thought of
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: it as their patriotic duty, or they had some suspicion,
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't quite confirmed because they were working
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: someone like BF Skinner actually he you know, sometimes they
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: would just fund they thought of leading scientists who were
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: doing behavioral research. So maybe the scientists would half know
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: that this Human Ecology Fund was actually the CIA, but
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: in other cases they really had no idea. So because
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: they would want to fund a left wing scientist who
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: maybe didn't really want to participate in this program, but
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: they're they're ended up participating.
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: I heard you quote Socrates on Rogan. It's funny because
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: in a part of my thesis, I just put you know,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: the big like because trying to understand thyself. You know,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: the beginning of wisdom is to know thyself or whatever
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: he said, And my PhD is essentially around self awareness.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: But it's funny how the questions that we ask now,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: most of the questions that we ask about who humans
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: are and how we are and why we are the
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: way we are, and how the mind works and how
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: we work as an organism among other organisms, like not
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: a lot's changed in some ways from those questions from
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: two and a half thousand years ago. I wonder how
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: much we know about the mind that we didn't know then?
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: That is a good question, I mean, in some ways,
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: in some ways, uh, I think the I think that
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: the investigation of the mind was profound then. I mean,
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: Socrates is an example. You could go back. We don't
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: always have evidence, but we can we have a sense
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: of the types of explorations that were and in some ways,
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: perhaps with cultural rituals that actually, you know, maybe I don't.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: I'm not an expert on this, but I could speculate
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: that there's a kind of wisdom that was possible that
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: actually gets becomes more difficult to achieve in modern societies
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: where we don't have coming of age rituals, we have
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: the ritual aspect of life is cut out. And that's
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: another that's another motivating reason I had for becoming an anthropologist.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: I was curious, you know, what was what would it
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: be like? Is it possible to think of a life
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: that was I was structured by meaningful transitions instead of
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: these kind of chaotic world that I seem too that
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: you know, that I was faced by. But on the
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: other hand, we do have certain advances and I guess
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: understandings of certainly brand chemistry is more advanced. And also
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: there's this yeah, go ahead, sorry.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: I was just going to say, when you like you personally,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: you look at a person or something that's going on,
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: and obviously you're a renowned research or an academic, and
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: you know, with a very with respect high IQ and
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: all of that. But at the same time, you're a
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: person who's done good stuff and bad stuff and made
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: mistakes and got things right and got things wrong. And
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: which is the lens that you analyze? Is A is
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: it A is it a hybrid? Like when you're looking
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: at stuff, do you ever rely on gut intuition? Just
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: like I don't know, you know that that not politically
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: scientific kind of lens because I do. But maybe.
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: No, no, I completely. I actually think I'd be paralyzed
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: if I didn't. And I've always done that ever since
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: I was in college. I would use my intuition, or
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: I will even just when I wanted to write a paper,
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: I would just go to sleep. Half I'd go. I'd
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: read as much as I could go half to sleep,
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: put a notepad by my paper, and you go into
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: a state called the hypnagogic state, something like that. And
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: I'd always have an idea that would come to me
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: when I was half sleeping that I couldn't even remember,
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: and then when I woke up, there'd be written down,
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: like some word or some little phrase, and then I
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: would use that. And like even now I have to say,
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: because it's so intimidating to think that you have to
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: read every single thing, contemplate everything, and sort of be
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: complete in your knowledge, I mean at every level. So
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: I always think of it almost like like I think
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: it's the areas where I'm weak or I feel a
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: kind of stupid, or I just don't get things that
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: are actually a strength, because that makes me want to
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: investigate it. Like this doesn't totally make sense to me.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: It's almost like you have to have confidence in your gaps,
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: in the things that you that you're just not getting,
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: and that maybe that's worth investigating.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: And I know we've got to go. But it's so
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: funny because really, when you think about marketing and branding
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: and selling stuff, of course this is like all advertising
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: and marketing is designed to manipulate people's thoughts or feelings
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: to buy whatever it is that they probably hadn't thought
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: about buying. So this is kind of low level mind control.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: I feel maybe I'm wrong, but it's like, you know,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: I talk to people about like a serial pack on
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: the front of the cereal boxes, it's not information, it's
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: it's a story. And on the back in that tiny
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: little box down the bottom right hand corner, in that
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: tiny little writing. That's where the information is. And if
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: they wanted you to see the actual information about the
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: contents of the box, it'd be on the front in
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: big writing. And you know, so the front is mind control,
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: the front is coercion manipulation. Hey, look there's an Olympian
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: on the front of our pack, and it's got all
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: these stars and ticks and all this amazing shits and
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: it's going to make you five years younger. You should
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: get this. I mean, it's kind of, if not control,
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: it's definitely mind influence. Right, yeah, totally.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: But I think the more you know, more amazing than
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: that is that it works. It still works even if
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: you can identify it you still it still works on me,
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: like I want to look like an Olympian or on
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: some level I am buying into it. There's actually such
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: an interesting history too on the where the emotional cell
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: comes from, you know, selling through emotion as well as
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: through information, and they're quite combined. But yeah, we do.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: We are subject to conditioning. It's sort of a human
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: a deeply human quality. And the thing I like about
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: the writer chess Off Milosh is he he just really
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: and some great writers I think what makes them. Great
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: is that they understand how deeply we are shaped by
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: these things, even if we recognize it while it's happening.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well yeah, so oh, I talked to you for
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: a long time. All right. The Instability of Truth, brainwashing,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: mind control and hyper persuasion is out now. Is it
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: available on audio? Rebecca, Yes, there's a really nice audio recording.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: And I think her name's Patty Nolan, but she does
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: she's like a voice artist. She's Okay, I'm going to
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: get the book today. I'm going to listen to the
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: book today, and then I'm going to send you another
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: request in a few months and you'll go, no, I'm
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: not going on that Australian show again. That was painful,
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: but I don't care. I'm going to badger you.
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: It's been so fun to talk to you.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Tip Are
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: you interested?
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, come back.
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: I think'll be back. Yeah, we'll say goodbye affair. But Rebecca,
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: we really appreciate you. What time is it where you are.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: It's about six in the evening or I guess wait eighteen.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: I don't know what system aster in Australia uses. It's
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: in the evening.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, eighteen hundred six o'clock, six pm. We'll say goodbye affair,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: but for the moment. Rebecca, thanks so much for being
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: on the You project.
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. It was wonderful to talk to you.