The term animal magnetism dates from Viennese doctor Franz Anton Mesmer, in the late 18th century. Mesmer built on ancient Masonic concepts of illness as evidence of an imbalance of a universal fluid within the individual. He believed the process was physiological but invisible just as electricity and magnetism are. At first he magnetized objects which his patients could then touch, but later found out that simple “passes” of his hands were sufficient to put patients into trance states. Once Mesmer had dispensed with actual magnets, there was no talking during the treatment. The passes, the music, the setting, the atmosphere were factors which were to increase indirectly the effect of the suggestion which induced an alteration of the state of consciousness, they were hypnotized.

A state in which mesmeric action can be exercised to influence the subjects’ will and nervous system is rapport, a connection depending on interaction with time-based patterns. Rapport is established by getting into resonance with activity patterns, then taking over and driving the pace. The practice of “animal magnetism” was changed when Marquis de Puysegur, a disciple of Mesmer, focused his attention on what happened to people in deep hypnosis. He named this “magnetic somnambulism” and observed that symptoms and behavior could be influenced by what the “magnetizer” said.¹

Hypnosis theory and practice anticipated much of psychoanalysis and hypnotic procedures were adopted by the founder of psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud translated books written by the leading practitioners of his day (Charcot and Bernheim) but later met with some discouragement, such as difficulties in hypnotizing many patients, and lack of long-lasting changes in those he did hypnotize and sought to escape the hypnotism label for his work.

Dictionaries define hypnosis as an induced sleeplike state in which the subject readily accepts the hypnotist’s suggestions. A derivative of the Greek word “hypno” meaning “sleep,” hypnosis is a “sleep-like” state and not sleep itself. Everybody has been in various hypnotic states many times without notice because it seemed natural. Hypnotic states are normal for humans and animals. People frequently lapse into a hypnotic state, triggered anytime a person remembers a sequence of events.

Hypnosis is associated with hyper-suggestibility, whereby subjects accept suggestions at deep levels of consciousness. Anyone is hypnotized as the common link between most situations of hyper-suggestibility appears to be a narrow selective focus of attention resulting from such diverse conditions as sensory isolation, relaxed attentiveness or extreme fear. Apparently, there is no single common EEG pattern in hyper suggestibility, which could make hypnotized individuals distinguishable, though there are hints of unique evoked potential responses. Many do not recognize the state of hypnosis because what they expect is to become unconscious. But unless you achieve deep somnambulistic levels, this is not what a hypnotic state is likely to be. Language itself is infected with the unconscious to the point where language is a collective unconscious dream.

Automatic activities like taking a shower or driving a car allow daydreaming and favor states of hypersuggestibility. Drifting from an alert state into a different level of consciousness, brain activity shifts as these states change. Everyone goes through altered states of consciousness at least twice a day—when you awaken and when you go to sleep.

Being aware of things going on around you, doesn’t mean you’re not hypnotized. Even when in hypnosis, you remain conscious of everything that is going on. Experiencing this light or medium hypnotic state is generally more effective than deep level hypnosis for purposes of behavior and habit control. Becoming more conditioned to the hypnotic state through successive sessions, the subject will continue to go deeper into trance each time.

Particular states of selective hyper-suggestibility are brought about by the use of a combination of relaxation and fixation, directing attention to an imagined activity, dialogue, or event resulting in literal interpretation of speech and severe reduction of conscious thought.

Linguistic tools match the subject’s ongoing experience while moving smoothly to altered states. Words such as “and,” “as,” “because,” “while” and “when” are linguistic bridges used to take a person into trance. Even when there is no logical connection, if you join them with “and” it appears that there is.

Truisms linked to an indirect suggestion that presupposes the subjects will go into an altered state, linked to a physiological inevitability make the hypnotic response seem impersonalized and hence automatic. By disassociating and de-personalizing processes normally thought to be validations of our consciousness, and overloading the conscious mind through self-referentiality Senso-Linguistic infiltration makes it easier to stop trying to do anything consciously. As the map is not the territory, internal representations carry some reality but do not reflect what actually happened. Internal representations and physiology are linked in a cybernetic loop. As subjects are told what to think, their behavior is a result of the state they are in.

Hyper state control mechanisms convey ideas that guide the focus of attention through language. Whatever you fix your attention on, you get more of. When subjects focus their attention, they have less of it left for external sensory stimuli as words paint pictures in their mind. The frame of perception influences meaning and the success of hypnotic induction. Meaning is created by the frames you choose to use, the context you create. A given perspective with its inherent dimensional distortions is loaded with visual interpretation and is a major effect of many optical illusions. Individuals with the biggest variety of choices would be the ones who have the broadest range of ways to look at things and hence the greatest scope for control. Reframing can decrease opportunities, which in turn decreases flexibility and power.

A typical move for a political influence group would be to set up news services for metadata-manipulation and subpropaganda. Intelligence Agencies put their intelligence into cooking infobytes from raw data for the editorial section of newspapers. Journalists or editorial boards benefit from lines they did not have to write up and willingly accept them when issued from a neutral front organization. Who needs censorship, when “extra-intelligence” infobody styling is available? Power itself is invisible, is experienced by its effects only. The question of who or what is in control remains unanswered as only its representation appears and what lies behind it is lost. (Ambassadorial systems are costly but highly effective inducers.) The war of representation systems is fought over standards and references. Hyper state control is a means of heightening motivation by programming the subconscious mind to work in active cooperation with implanted conscious desires and is therefore extremely effective in helping to create behavior modification.

Dimensional Framing

States receptive to hypnotic suggestion are likely to bring about sensations of hyperreality—more detached or more connected than usual to your surroundings. Using every element of the environment to build the subjects’ experience is a key to immersion. Using everything and feeding back to the subjects what they observe is essential to successful induction. Distractions are incorporated in order to take subjects even deeper in trance. A seamless tapestry of the imaginary space, building a rich sensory description of a desired state will create a rich sensorial experience in the subject while changing state through reframing questions.

An information-menu is a special form of map. Symbolic orientation systems attributed with the aura of objectivity are a traditional subject of military and extra-intelligence. Distortions from dimensional effects and the use of perspective have always been an instrument of power and topographic maps are processed and manipulated for strategic reasons. In world maps, projections of a 3-D sphere onto the plane are propagandistically used regarding size and the center of power. The trapdoors of perception are wide open for travelers on territorial maps. With the complexity of a non-linear information system, as in hypermedia one can expect not only enhanced retrievability of data but also a field for manipulation of a higher order. A major threat in modern life is being killed by your own defense system, which has been triggered too often by direct and indirect hypnotic suggestions. Automatic clusters of deep trance phenomena that act as our patterns of defense. Not taking responsibility for the frames then means that something else will...

The concept of memory as a tool and set of techniques, that can be learned and skillfully applied to form mental and ideological spaces has a long tradition. Its use as a weapon to establish symbolic orders can be traced back to the earliest records of domination. Pre-modern societies based their social memory on the interaction of oral transmission and information in pictorial code. Artificial memory is established through places and images, a virtual psycho-geography of synreal systems, strengthened and confirmed by training. Regulated by the state through an education system controlled by a priestly elite, sensory perception can be harnessed through the visual representations of extremes or analogies which will then be methodologically applied in the creation of mental scenarios and punctuate the individuals development through ritualistic ceremonies. A monologic tyranny of monuments radiating the wonders and mysteries of the symbolic order, memorials of a spectacular reconfiguration of memory. These scenarios introduce an “arrow of time” and an inherently political narrative logic to a mental structure of psycho-civilization, dependent on collective ritual re-enactment and performance, reinforcing hyperlinks of cognitive associations within the ideational bunker.

Embedded Commands

Even though the Milgram experiment on Obedience and Individual Responsibility² showed that humans possess the capacity to relinquish their autonomy, people find it difficult to accept that individuals can be hypnotized to perform an act that is against their moral principles. US Army experiments suggest that this popular perception is untrue. On the contrary they concluded that people could be induced to commit acts contrary to their morality if their reality was distorted by hypnotic state control. One of the experiments involved trying to manipulate a normal, stable army private to attack a superior officer, a cardinal sin in the military. While in deep trance he was told that the officer sitting across from him was an enemy soldier who was going to attempt to kill him. In the private’s mind, it was a “kill or be killed” situation. The private immediately jumped up and grabbed the officer by the throat. The experiment was repeated several times.

Department of Psychology chairman at Colgate University, Dr. Estabrooks, one of the most authoritative sources stirring up fear of mind-controlled sixth columnists in wartime USA stated, “I can hypnotize a man without his knowledge or consent into committing treason.” ³

The middle levels of hyper state control are the ones in which behavior modification will occur most easily and the ones in which one is most susceptible to posthypnotic suggestion. More important than what has happened in someone’s life is how it is interpreted. Brainwashing is not necessarily achieved by punishment or reward but by changing the self-image, reprogramming and breaking psycho-cybernetic loops, control circuits of affirmation and denial. Humans can tolerate only small amounts of discrepancy between their thoughts and behavior. Goals or outcomes are related to certain behaviors and/or physical things—the way you feel about something.

A traditional technique of memory artists from pre-modern days to today’s television shows is to assemble a large number of places, or loci and place into these receptacles images or simulacra of what is to be remembered. The manipulation of the psychological impact of images in dimensional space to create memorable imprints is a key to how people store vast amounts of information. This mechanism can be manipulated in a reverse fashion. Techniques are used for both mind clearing and amnesia. The suggestion is given that any suggestions given will not be remembered by the conscious mind, but the subject will act upon them nonetheless. The suggestion is given that the more the subject tries to remember the suggestions the more they will be forgotten.

Hyper State control as a political tool uses psychologically coercive techniques in order to indoctrinate subjects. The end justifies the means to form an elitist, totalitarian society. If you make a person behave the way you want, you can make that person believe what you want. Hyper-State control techniques are based on the same principles as mind control techniques studied in social control systems of cult groups and social bodies in general. Among them are practices of isolation, regression, meta-communication (implanting subliminal messages by stressing keywords or phrases in long, confusing explanations), and group pressure. The aim is alertness reduction, programmed confusion and flattening of the mind. The chthonic will express itself against the conscious mind, when ordinary thinking is silenced, distracted, or thoroughly deranged.

Electronic Dissolution of Memory (EDOM) is accomplished by “electronically jamming the brain with microwave technology, causing excess amounts of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine to create static which blocks out sight and sounds.”⁴ Memory can be stopped for as long as the radio signal continues. The awareness of the person skips over the time during which he is subjected to the radio signal. Any memory of the incident is gone, the mind is blank. Memory is distorted, and time-orientation destroyed.

Creating anxiety and fear, inducing states of high suggestibility and controlling relationships to assure loyalty and obedience are standard management techniques of the social body. Desensitization through language abuse, propaganda and junk-information, as well as the elimination of individual ideas through repetition of chants and phrases or the inducement of dependence by introducing sports, games or TV shows with obscure rules, are part of a large set of social styling methods. Pumping up disorientation, susceptibility to emotional arousal is increased by depriving the nervous system through special diets of junk-food, prolonging mental and physical activity and withholding rest and sleep. False intimacy is created through emotionalism and the need to belong is exploited while suppressing resistance through peer pressure. Affirmation of lifestyle by denouncing other values and beliefs combined with encouraging blind acceptance and rejection of logic is achieved through complex incomprehensible doctrine. Strategies of influence include removing individuality by demanding conformity to dress codes and accomplishing automatic acceptance of beliefs by discouraging questions. Loss of ability to evaluate logically is achieved by preventing privacy and destroying the ability to evaluate information, personal reactions, and body functions in relation to passage of time. The destruction of individuality is advanced through confession of personal weaknesses while creating a false sense of identity by pointing to the shortcomings of others.

Other methods include composing child-like obedience by orchestrating child-like behavior and disinhibition, while inducing regression and disorientation by soliciting agreement to seemingly simple rules which regulate lifestyle. Promoting acceptance of authority by promising advancement and power while maintaining confusion by alternately rewarding and punishing similar actions. Encouraging bunkering in and dumbing down through induced loss of reality by separation from communal life and rational references, while the spectacle is designed to give the illusion of sociability, public interaction, and of choice.

It seems likely that in the future nations will be more and more involved in multiple conflicts in which conventional military force cannot be applied. This will involve hostile populations in situations where the application of non-lethal force will be of tactical or political preference. Numerous articles in military publications with titles like “Weapons Of Mass Protection: Nonlethality, Information Warfare, And Airpower In The Age Of Chaos” refer to this subject.⁵ There are a number of physical agents that actively interact or interfere with the biological processes in an adversary in a manner that will provide armed forces the tools to control these enemies without extensive loss of property. These physical agents include acoustic, optical and electromagnetic fields, and various combinations thereof combined with behavior control techniques and drugs. The Cold War and Korean War in particular boosted mind control research and the emergence of ‘Brain Washing’ as a common term. Supposedly the term was coined by a magazine writer later found to be a secret agent of influence. ⁶ Postulating a ‘brainwashing gap’ intelligence agencies got the go-ahead for research. Hypnosis, drugs, and psycho-surgery; all were tools in this quest for a truth serum and the ability to create agents whose missions could be tortured out of them, or who would not be aware that they were carrying secret information given to them in an altered state of consciousness. Sophisticated drugs combined with lobotomy and the implantation of electrodes were considered methods for creating “very special agents.” Electro-Convulsive Shock, combined with LSD, sedation for days at a time, and constant replaying of the patient’s own voice through helmet-mounted headphones was a notorious recipe for mind control.

One CIA mind control project in the 1950s aimed at finding ways to protect the security of agents in the field was project BLUEBIRD. It attempted to discover means of conditioning personnel to prevent unauthorized extraction of information. During the project, another goal was established-the evaluation of the offensive uses of unconventional interrogation methods, including the use of hypnosis and sophisticated combination of drugs. Later renamed Project ARTICHOKE the objective was the creation of a “Manchurian” killer marionette with an electronically blanked memory while MKDRACO was developing brain telemetry and intra-cerebral control devices implanting micro-receivers in the frontal or temporal lobes. Various other projects like STARGATE investigated possibilities of using telepathic control or remote viewing for military purposes. It has been repeatedly suggested that after the termination of MKULTRA, the umbrella for special research purposes, the CIA shifted its programs from public institutions to private cult groups. Several eccentric religious groups and movements were organized or co-opted by intelligence operators. (including among others the Peoples’ Temple, the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Ordo Templis Orientis (OTO), Finders and Switzerland’s Solar Temple). As privatization of the public sector is increasing, with commercial prison facilities, private police and security forces, this seems a natural step.

2. Milgram, Stanley, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View. New York, NY: Harper/Collins (1983).