- published: 16 Mar 2016
- views: 24510
Mind control (also known as brainwashing, coercive persuasion, mind abuse, menticide, thought control, or thought reform) refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator(s), often to the detriment of the person being manipulated". The term has been applied to any tactic, psychological or otherwise, which can be seen as subverting an individual's sense of control over their own thinking, behavior, emotions or decision making. In Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes, Jacques Ellul maintains that the "principal aims of these psychological methods is to destroy a man's habitual patterns, space, hours, milieu, and so on."
Theories of brainwashing and of mind control were originally developed to explain how totalitarian regimes appeared to succeed in systematically indoctrinating prisoners of war through propaganda and torture techniques. These theories were later expanded and modified to explain a wider range of phenomena, especially conversions to new religious movements (NRMs).
David Vaughan Icke (pronounced /aɪk/, or IKE, born 29 April 1952) is an English writer and public speaker, best known for his views on what he calls "who and what is really controlling the world." Describing himself as the most controversial speaker in the world, he is the author of 19 books and has attracted a global following that cuts across the political spectrum. His 533-page The Biggest Secret (1999) has been called "the Rosetta Stone for conspiracy junkies."
Icke was a well-known BBC television sports presenter and spokesman for the Green Party, when in 1990 a psychic told him he was a healer who had been placed on Earth for a purpose, and that the spirit world was going to pass messages to him so he could educate others. In March 1991 he held a press conference to announce that he was a "Son of the Godhead" – a phrase he said later the media had misunderstood – and the following month told the BBC's Terry Wogan show that the world would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes. He said the show changed his life, turning him from a respected household name into someone who was laughed at whenever he appeared in public.
Albert Lincoln "Al" Roker, Jr. (born August 20, 1954) is an American television weatherman as well as an actor and book author. He is best known as being the weather anchor on NBC's Today. On Monday, July 20, 2009, he began co-hosting his new morning show, Wake Up with Al, on The Weather Channel, which airs weekdays from 6am to 7am ET, one hour earlier than Today. He holds an expired American Meteorological Society Television Seal, #238. Writing with Dick Lochte, Roker began a series of murder mysteries in 2009 that feature Billy Blessing, a celebrity chef turned amateur detective. The second book in the series, The Midnight Show Murders (2010), was nominated for a 2011 Nero Award.
Roker was born in Queens, New York, the son of Isabel, of Jamaican descent, and Albert Lincoln Roker, Sr., a labor relations negotiator, bus driver and dispatcher of Bahamian descent. Roker initially wanted to be a cartoonist. He was raised Catholic (in the faith of his mother) and graduated from Xavier High School in Manhattan. He worked on several projects as a member of the school's Cartooning & Illustration Club. He attended the State University of New York at Oswego where he double-majored in graphic design and broadcasting/journalism. Roker is the cousin of the late actress Roxie Roker, who was most notable for her role on the sitcom The Jeffersons and the mother of popular rock musician Lenny Kravitz.