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Playing with the mind – NLP and the War on Terror

By Thoth

Posted on Monday, December 05, 2005 (CST) by Thoth

Every day we are subject to countless news stories, reports, revelations and visual images to remind us of the reality of the war on terror. A growing number of people are beginning to question if we are subject to the objective reporting of all the facts or if we are sold what the world’s governments want us to believe.

Most people are resigned to an element of bias in the media but are techniques such as NLP (Neuro-Linguistics Prgramming –ed) being used to manipulate our unconscious thoughts, installing and influencing new belief systems in the minds of an unsuspecting public?

The CIA has conducted three top-secret mind control projects since the 1950's, Bluebird, Artichoke and Mkultra. These projects centred on the use of aggressive techniques such as electric shock therapy and the use of chemical, biological and radiological materials to ‘brainwash’ selective individuals.


Is it possible that the war on terror is yet another CIA project, one that this time uses subtle methodology of NLP to affect confusion, self-delusion, herd mentality and tyranny amongst competing ideologies? It’s interesting to ponder that the CIA has often been accused of having connections with the birth of Al Qaeda and thus, the 911 attacks.

The background of NLP

NLP or Neuro-Linguistic Programming has become the buzzword of the past 30 years since the technique was formalised by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. NLP is essentially the study of the structure of subjective experiences and behavioural programming. It operates on the assumption that behaviour has a determinable structure that is developed at an unconscious level and which can be both modelled and modified. In the right hands, the benefits of NLP are undeniable, but in the wrong hands. a tool for self-improvement and behaviour modification can become a tool for ethically dubious applications such as mass mind control.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming is often proposed as a study of the way in which the human beings structure their perceptions, it creates a framework that can be used to analyse study and reprogram a person’s behaviour, lifestyle and attitude. As a form of unconscious and conscious learning, proponents of NLP state that it allows destructive patterns of behaviour to be modified and productive ones to be enhanced and that NLP relies on the voluntary participation of the patient. On an individual basis, that claim is probably very valid but if NLP were applied to a population as a whole, then participation in the exercise would be unconscious, most of those targeted would have no idea their thoughts and understanding were being subtly manipulated.

In many ways NLP isn’t really new; it’s an age-old technique that’s finally been given a name.

The missing link between Politics and Religion

NLP could be considered compatible with any religion or spiritual context. To all intents and purposes, religion itself may be nothing more than collective Neuro-Linguistic Programming, essentially reprogramming the habits and transforming beliefs and mental associations of its followers, as the socio-political climate dictates.

Perhaps more than anything, the adoption of the Christian faith by Rome sealed the relationship between politics and religion. By doing so, the emperor Constantine the Great set in motion a system of manipulation and control that has never been improved upon, in many ways no organisation puts NLP to better use than religion. The Roman political agenda was controlled as much through the early Christian church as it was through its political administration. The Roman Catholic Church increased and solidified its dominion throughout Europe with the infamous Inquisition the 13th Century creating a climate of suspicion and fear to control society behaviour.

Religious cults have long been accused of ‘brain washing’ their members owing to the methodology their organisations use, cult leaders often exuding powerful charisma and unquestionable authority. In many ways that methodology is no different to that which the mainstream religions employ; it is simply more direct and less subtle due to the fact that cults lack the cradle to the grave membership of the mainstream religions.

This cradle to the grave commitment underlines one of the assertions of Neuro-Linguistic Programming; that people do not generally have access to an absolute knowledge of reality but rather, have access to a set of beliefs that have been built up over time, it is this belief system that creates their 'reality'. For thousands of years, the framework of religious dogma has facilitated the creation of people’s realities. During the Middle Ages it wasn’t uncommon for Christians to attend church at least twice a day. People were obliged to attend frequent services and taught not to question the authority of the institution. These services were often used to ensure that both social and political messages were not only distributed amongst the masses, but also accepted by them.

When we look at the Muslim faith today, the devout are bound by the same obligation to attend their mosques on a daily basis where they are potentially exposed to the same subliminal and direct programming as any other devout religion or cult. In Britain, there are moves under foot to deport a number of so called ‘radical clerics’ from the country in an effort to stem the propaganda and messages of hate and intolerance that they allegedly preach.

The Media Machine and the battle for hearts and minds

The media has an unrivalled effect in human thinking and action using repetitive patterns to affect a form of social conditioning. Governments have learned how to utilize television with its 24 hour news stations, radio and the press as a powerful means of communicating the socio political messages they want people to hear. Television works on the conscious and subconscious at the same time imparting the messages to a receptive audience, who put their unquestioning faith in the impartiality and accuracy of television news and current affairs programmes. These mediums constantly reinforce the culturally defined micro and macro-patterns of society and the doctrines of the political regimes that underpin and channel human behaviours.

The media bombardment works on the principal that most people won't consciously remember many of the specifics of the reports yet at a subconscious level they will have created new enegrams and thus new pathways for the viewer’s thoughts to follow.

Significantly, it has recently emerged that George Bush had planned to order the bombing of the Al Jazzera TV station as part of his strategy in addressing the ‘war on terror’. Al Jazeera is of course the TV station that terrorist organizations, like Al Qaeda, send video messages to. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who despite his personal backing for Bush, has struggled to win the support of the British media and thus, the British public talked Bush out of this idea. When news of the planned bombing of Al Jazzera leaked out in Britain, the Attorney General there ordered that the British media, which has never been particularly supportive of America’s foreign policy, to cease reporting the story. Although the main stream media were then obliged to comply with the directive, certain acerbic members of the British press used it to highlight both Blair’s pandering to Bush and Bush’s questionable tactics. One current affairs program went as far as to joke that this would have been a major tactical flaw on Bush’s part, for no other reason than Al Jazzera obviously have more of an idea where Bin Laden is than the hapless Bush does.

The issue of the British media’s support of its government policy is in stark contrast to its American counterparts. In Britain, the media has been largely uncooperative in supporting the government’s policies concerning the war on terror, particularly in relation to its unfaltering support of American foreign policy. This lack of media backing means that the British government has failed to galvanise public opinion, support for the war on terror and US foreign policy is lukewarm. Without the support of the media mass, NLP is an almost impossible trick to pull off.

As has been demonstrated, the media plays a key role in collective NLP. One of the techniques NLP uses, and the reason why the media is so crucial to the technique, is visual triggers. These visual images are used by our sensory perceptions to create engrams, the neurological mechanisms through which memory traces are stored in the brain. These engrams create an anchor for our thought patterns.

Images such as the ones below are extremely powerful and long lasting, immediately plugging into the subjective experience of the individual and the collective experience of masses. In other words pictures of the Twin Towers, President Bush or Osama Bin Laden evoke a conditioned response. These visual triggers are deeply ingrained on the psyche of the West as evidence of the cowardly war of terror a jealous Islam is waging against the freedom and democracy of the West.

Daily existence and the 'Mind' are treated as systemic processes in the field of NLP. The processes that take place within a human being, during their interactions with others and with their environment are systemic (Bateson 1979). Our bodies, our societies, and our planet form a complex matrix of interrelated systems and sub-systems, which interact with and influence each other.

The process of NLP assumes that looking from different vantage points may result in quite different and yet equally valid descriptions and emphasis of what is important in the system. In theory, this could become a very effective tool that could be used to engineer conflict on a mass scale, with conflicting ideologies considering the same set of circumstances very differently.

The images of the mortally wounded Twin Towers, Bin Laden and Bush are deeply embedded in the minds of many in the Middle East although the associations are different where they are seen as a strike for freedom against an arrogant and oppressive superpower. Neither associations are necessarily correct but the new tool of mass NLP, the media, constantly reinforces the thought patterns of each culture.

Body posture, breathing, gestures towards eyes, ears or body, eye movements and language patterns are all elements that are used to trigger the unconscious mind in NLP. Photographs of Osama Bin Laden commonly circulated by the media always seem to show his eyes as being an unusually prominent feature. Likewise, the eye contact made by newsreaders when we watch their bulletins is another small but important component of the NLP technique. Leaders such as Bush and Blair are known to have incorporated NLP techniques in their public appearances and speaking, with body language and speech patterns featuring prominently.

The incorporation goals is another element of NLP, part of these goals may include changing a state of mind or "re-programming" their own or somebody else's beliefs. It is clear to see how this applies to the war on terror, with both sides being sucked into the reality created by their respective media machines and both been sold the idea that success lies with the subjugation of the other’s belief system and values and by embracing the belief system of their respective leaders.

The differing approaches – might versus stealth, to what in effect is a media sustained conflict ensures that neither side can ever really ‘win’. However, the individual and collective ability to reason is itself subjugated by the media machine and by the far right extremists from both sides. It is these far right extremists that form the basis for the behavioural model that both governments are attempting to implant in society. We confidently assume that we have the ability to discern but the reality is the process of NLP that the media facilitates ensures that the herd mentality prevails. We believe that we are thinking for ourselves, but to some extent this is an illusion. In reality we are thinking along the lines created by those enegrams that were so dramatically established on September 11th and a behavioural model that has been reinforced by the media on a daily basis since then.

Using NLP to win the battle for the hearts and minds of both the Middle East and the West has created two influential yet opposing mindsets and two very different realities, more importantly it has disempowered people on a global scale the likes of which has never been seen before.

The question is: Will this exercise in global political propaganda, or one might say indoctrination, be a unique exercise or will the technique simply be developed, refined and used again?

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