The psychologist was staying in a hotel in the suburbs. Sam called him up and made an appointment. When Sam arrived at the hotel, the psychologist was sitting in the lobby chatting with an old lady. In five minutes, he got free and came towards Sam. He shook hands with him and asked him the purpose of his visit. Sam gave him a brief account of what he had been going through lately and also commented on the article that the psychologist had written and how it made him feel.
“Your problem may not be directly due to the effects of television, as I mentioned in that article, but it is surely related. Television is definitely a cause but it is not the only cause. It is the conditioning effect of the environment, which includes television, amongst other things. However, television may be and usually is the most powerful and potent medium of conditioning. It is when one becomes slightly aware of it and sees the actual truth of it, and not as an idea or theory, that one becomes afraid and fearful. It affects the personality in many ways causing depression, anxiety and a sense of dissociation.”
“I don’t quite understand what you mean,” Sam replied. “Do you mean that we are conditioned, as in programmed, and we are not what we think we are but are what various sources have molded us into, including television, which you say is the most potent and powerful amongst these mind manipulators?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying, partly. Most of us like to think that our own minds and thought processes are impenetrable. We like to think that other people can be manipulated, but we cannot. We believe that our opinions, values, ideas and beliefs are totally autonomous. One of the principal tools in the mind manipulation arsenal is television, the cultural arm of the established industrial order. Television, the drug of the world, maintains, stabilizes and reinforces ideas, attitudes and behaviors through its programming and advertising.”
“But don’t we learn from our environment, doesn’t watching television educate us, inform us too?”
“It is important to differentiate between conditioning and education. Does TV educate or does it condition us? Education is when you are involved, critically examining everything and seeing the facts of them and not just receiving and accepting blindly. You may think that TV does no harm because you know it’s not real, but did you know that your subconscious believes it to be real? Do you know that they don’t teach us one very important thing in schools, which is: the word is not the actual. The description, the image, the word, the symbol is not the actual. We are not taught that and our brains are not able to differentiate between them. That’s why we think that the word is the thing. How many of us think that the word ‘love’ is love? Aren’t we conditioned by the word?”
“I think so,” Sam replied, “But I’m not very clear about it. I do agree that it’s sometimes hard for me to differentiate between the real and imagined.”
“I have done a lot of research on this and have spent almost all my life learning about it. I think it is a very important subject. I’ll give you some facts. Did you know in America, children and adolescents spend 22 to 28 hours per week viewing television, more than any other activity except sleeping? That means that by the age of 70 they will have spent 7 to 10 years of their lives watching TV. On average people watch 5-6 hours of TV every day. This figure is only an average; many people, especially children, watch far more than this. This not only programs their minds from an early age, but may also damage their brains, causing them to grow up and behave more like an animal than a human, thus driven by basic desires such as sex, violence and food.”
“That’s astonishing. But not all people watch TV. Would you say that even the people who don’t watch much TV are prone to some kind of passive effects through others who do watch a lot of TV?”
“Yes, I would say that. It is infectious. After all, it’s collective subconscious, not just an individual consciousness. What affects others affects you too. More than any other single effect, television places images in our brains.”
“Yes, I remember having some dreams which I couldn’t quite place. Then I recalled that the images I saw in my dreams were a part of some TV show I had seen a couple of years ago.”
“I think that psychologically, we are still at a very primitive stage. We have not yet learned to distinguish in our minds between natural images and those which are artificially created and implanted. That is why I said our education should teach us that the word, the image, the idea is not the real, is never the actual.”
“Yes,” said Sam, “I think I’m beginning to see your point.”
“TV has everything to program your mind. You know what that means? It means you are conditioned, programmed by outside sources, like a computer is programmed. That means that the brain becomes like a machine, accepting, recording and working within the program, never free and never original. Therefore, TV can be and usually is used to program you into behaving, reacting, responding as per the program. It may seem fantastic when you hear this but it’s the truth.”
“But it’s hard to believe. It still seems to me like fiction, like in that movie, Matrix.”
“Of course, that’s how you’ll feel. As I told you, the brain more or less loses the faculty of distinguishing between the real and the imaginary, since it is used to believing in everything it sees. Wait, I’ll give you some more facts. Did you know watching TV puts the viewer into a highly suggestible sleeplike hypnotic state? This provides easy access to the subconscious. When you watch TV, your brain activity switches from the left side of your brain, which is responsible for logical thought and critical analysis, to the right side. And the right side of the brain does not critically analyze incoming information; instead it uses an emotional response. This means there is little or no analysis of incoming information. Right brain activity causes the body to release chemicals called endorphins which have natural sedative properties similar to the drug heroin. It is therefore not only possible, but probable, for a person to become physically addicted to TV. This ensures constant daily exposure, a critical factor involved in programming the mind. It also reduces higher brain activity, promoting activity in lower brain regions. In other words it makes you less intelligent and more likely to behave like an animal.”
“Okay, is that the reason why advertising is so successful and why we see so many commercials while watching TV?”
“Yes, that is something which is exploited by the marketers, the industry people, intentionally or unintentionally. There are subliminal suggestions being hidden in certain advertisements. Not only that, words and phrases are used in specifically crafted ways to influence your thoughts.”
“These people who use these things to program us, manipulate our minds, who are they? Is it one person or many? Is it an organization or the government? And do they have our best interests at heart?”
“I don’t know about this,” said the psychologist. “But it is surely a sign of our collective ignorance, irresponsibility and self-interest. Mainly self-interest, which is the base of all corruption. Anyway, I’m sure for those who are involved in this, the underlying assumption is that the public must be manipulated for its own good. Many advertising strategies involve covert methods to trick the consumer into believing their lives are incomplete and deficient without the promoted product; only through purchasing the commodity will the consumer’s life be ‘whole’ or ‘better’ again. Many advertisements send the message ‘you’re not good enough’ unless you drink the right soft drink, buy a new car, use the perfect shampoo or stock up on scented toilet paper. Other messages subconsciously prey upon guilt, anxieties or hostilities. Many people, hundreds of times a day, are hearing or reading subliminally that they’re not good enough. This continual suggestion is a major cause of stress, and certainly the cause of much dissatisfaction, anxiety and even illness.”
“Yes, I agree. How many times have I felt this way but could never put a finger on it? I think that suggestibility exists constantly within our psyches, determining our state of being, our consciousness and our relationship to ourselves and the world around us.”
“While the power of suggestion is generally exercised unconsciously in our day to day existence, it is exploited deliberately and ruthlessly in the world of advertising. What a person watches DOES influence them, and this is well known by the behaviorists in the group. In fact, they know that TV is a tool that they purposely use to influence ‘the masses.’ The medical industry, for example, does not want people who would buy and consume according to their own requirements. Rather, they want them to buy on suggestion. Many advertisements offer cures for a debilitating array of ills from headaches and backache to constipation, prostate problems and premenstrual tension. The sheer ubiquity of such promised cures convinces us, if only by suggestion, that we must need them, and that we must or should be suffering from the afflictions that they claim to alleviate.
“Subliminal advertising was exposed in the 1950s,” the psychologist continued, “When some TV commercials were discovered to be transmitting split-second images that were designed to stimulate a viewer’s desire for a certain product. For example, during a soft drink commercial, an advertiser might have flashed the message ‘I’m thirsty’ without the viewer realizing it.”
“I just recalled some article that I read a while back about an Army using something like this to create soldiers who will kill more,” said Sam. “After the Second World War the Army recognized the need to create a soldier who was more willing to kill. This came after reports that many soldiers would purposely miss or aim low when shooting the enemy. Soldiers did not want to kill, and when they did kill they would feel lots of remorse. To remedy this, one method that was used amongst others was to make them watch violent images on screen, especially before going into battle. The effect was to desensitize the soldier to violence, thereby making him more willing to kill.”
“That’s programming for you!”
“I think that the effect would be worse in the case of children.”
“Yes, it is very concerning and very disturbing,” the psychologist agreed. “Do you know advertising and marketing firms have long used the insights and research methods of psychology to sell products to children? Today these practices are reaching epidemic proportions. Psychologists, marketing people, and advertising and entrepreneurial firms work together to try to understand how best to sell things to young children. Psychologists are regulars at marketing conferences and in business magazines. Many advertisers brag that their understanding of child psychology gives them the edge when serving clients. Using psychological principles to sell products to children means not only selling a product, but also a larger value system that says making money and using money to purchase material goods is the road to happiness.
“Not only that,” he continued, “But the programs that are aired on the television for children, the so-called ‘children’s programs,’ are really creating havoc in the children’s psyche. I remember reading somewhere that some psychologists in Russia had called on the government to ban a television cartoon, asserting that a 25th shot system was applied in the cartoon which negatively affects children’s sub-consciousness. As a result of this shot’s impact, a ‘neuro-linguistic programming’ occurs, or, to put it in other words, zombifying. The psychologists characterize this phenomenon as ‘intellectual genocide.’ In their view, the cartoon calls for cruelty and aggression, while numerous signs on the heroes’ costumes symbolize death.”
“TV today has a profound influence on our society,” said Sam, “And especially young children. I don’t think anyone is untouched by it. Even women, I think, are usually a target of this and are greatly affected by it. How television has been continually defining things like beauty, love, fitness, health etc. for the masses.”
“Yes, women are carefully trained by the media to view themselves as inadequate. They are taught that other women — through the purchase of clothes, cosmetics, food, vocations, avocations, education, etc. — are more desirable and feminine than themselves. That’s the case with most women, if they do not realize this consciously. You see, TV itself is like a mass-mind. It’s a different world altogether and for many people, it is the real world. Real-life experience is replaced by the mediated ‘experience’ of television viewing. The TV ‘world’ becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: the mass mind takes shape, its participants acting according to media-driven impulses and believing them to be their own personal volition arising out of their own desires and needs.”
“But are we so helpless against it all? Isn’t there some kind of filter or protective covering in our brain which is somehow related to our experiences, memories and learning, something that is our own, part of our identity?”
“You see, the critical side of your brain is the left. As you hear this you are making judgments, passing opinions and coming to conclusions. Whether they are ‘stupid nonsense’ or ‘I knew it,’ they are being caused by beta brain waves. These are the waves activated when you begin to use that left hand side, the center of logical human communication and analysis — the certain something that separates us from other mammals. Researchers have found that once the television set is switched on that left hand side and all its faculties tends to switch off. Instead the images from television’s 300,000 little dots (which make up the picture) go straight to the right brain. The switch from beta to alpha waves shows this. Alpha brain waves are the ones we associate with meditation, sleep and zombification.
“Some years ago the Journal of Advertising Research compared the brain activity of reading, say a newspaper, with the activity while watching the box. Conclusions: the response was different. The response to print may fairly be described as active, while the response to television may fairly be called passive. I think it is important to realize that when a person watches TV, they go into an alpha brain wave state, in which they are more suggestible than normal.
“Have you ever noticed the glazed expression on the face of a person who has been watching TV for any length of time? This is from being in prolonged alpha state and a semi dissociative state.”
“Yes,” said Sam, “I’m aware of that. I have myself found myself lost in that state plenty of times. I realize that I become what I watch on TV.”
“Right. You’ve got it! Let me give you some more facts. There was research conducted in the 1960s by Professor George Gerbner, Dean of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, which showed that television has protracted effects which are gradual and indirect, but cumulative and significant. He found that heavy watching of television cultivated attitudes that were more consistent with the world of television programs than with the everyday world. For example, heavy television viewers tend to develop a ‘mean world syndrome,’ believing that the world is a nastier place than do light television viewers. He also discovered that television watching cultivated a symbolic message about law and order with the action-adventure genre reinforcing a faith in law and order, the status quo and social justice, with the villains and the bad people always getting what they deserve.”
“Yes, that’s what we discussed about people living in different worlds rather than in the real world, which is the only world where one can live.”
“Before television, there was conversation around the dinner table or people used to go out and meet people,” the psychologist replied. “Technology now stands between us and each other, between people and the natural world. We know our virtual ‘neighbors’ on television better than our real neighbors next door. As communities and extended family structures decay, the isolated individual becomes easy prey for the mind manipulators. As cathode ray reality becomes genuine reality, public opinion becomes homogenized and mainstreamed, widespread apathy and indifference prevail.
“This mainstreaming of opinion is evident in nightly news bulletins, which have become a source of entertainment first and information second,” he continued. “Local television stations all report the same news simultaneously, even using the same footage. Despite the similarities, each claims to be ‘the best,’ ‘the latest’ or ‘the most up to date.’ In reality, they are hardly different and it is difficult for the public to distinguish one from the other.
“Commenting on this subtle mind manipulation, former CIA agent Philip Agee, in his book On the Run, observes: ‘Television news is show business, designed to entertain and intentionally or not, programmed to keep people ignorant.’
“And with the advent of ‘reality’ television, the boundaries between the real world and the virtual world have been inextricably blurred by the mind manipulators. As real-life experiences are replaced by the mediated experiences of reality and fantasy, gained via television viewing, it becomes easy for politicians and market researchers to rely on a base of predetermined mass experience that can be evoked by appropriate triggers. As the mass mind takes shape, its participants act according to media-driven impulses, believing them to be their own personal choices arising out of their own desires and needs.
“Most people believe the news shown on TV to be real and the opinions presented therein to be the truth. In fact, news watching, like newspaper reading, is something of a habit with most people. They say it keeps them informed. All that information, which they believe to be true and factual, seems to increase their knowledge and understanding.
“I’m sure that’s what most people do believe. I myself know some people who cannot function without reading the newspaper, and news according to them is an essential part of living. It is easy to see that it’s simply another means of entertainment. Moreover, it is usually the quality of the shows that is often criticized. However, this is missing the point. Television shows are not supposed to be thought provoking. You are not supposed to question the images you see on TV, only believe in their prima facie existence.
“Television programs, commercials, news reports and talk shows are all designed toward blind acceptance by the viewer. Because, after all, if you see it with your own eyes, it must be true. It must be real. Reality inside a box!”
“This widespread damage, is it permanent, is it something that can be remedied?” Sam asked. “Is there any way to undo the mind control damage already done by TV?”
“Turn it off. Easier said than done. Once the input stops, it isn’t constantly reinforced. But really, it isn’t as simple as that. In 1977, an American activist and former advertising executive named Jerry Mander wrote a book called Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. In the book, he talks about not only the contents of the television images, but the effects television has on the human mind and body. His discussion includes: the induction of alpha waves, a hypnotizing effect that a motionless mind enters; the way viewers often regard what they see on television as real even though the programs are filled with quick camera switches, rapid image movement, computer generated objects, computer generated morphing and other technical effects; the placement of artificial images into our mind’s eye; and the effects that large amounts of television viewing have on children and the onset of attention deficit disorder.
“Further, he states, ‘The horror of television is that the information goes in, but we don’t react to it. It goes right into our memory pool and perhaps we react to it later but we don’t know what we’re reacting to. When you watch television you are training yourself not to react and so later on, you’re doing things without knowing why you’re doing them or where they came from.’
“‘Television offers neither rest nor stimulation,’ Mander says. ‘Television inhibits your ability to think, but it does not lead to freedom of mind, relaxation or renewal. It leads to a more exhausted mind. You may have time out from prior obsessive thought patterns, but that’s as far as television goes. The mind is never empty, the mind is filled. What’s worse, it is filled with someone else’s obsessive thoughts and images.’
“Well, why do you think they call it programming? Mander goes into great detail discussing the physical effects television viewing has on the human mind and body. His analysis is excellent.”
“I’ve heard of that book,” Sam stated. “I think I read the name in one of Linda Goodman’s books long ago. It was mentioned there as suggested reading.”
“Mander argues that the brain cannot fight against the continuous and unending encroachment of modern video technology. We will naturally and fluidly believe all that we see. Once the images are inside you, they imprint upon your memory. They become yours. What’s more, the images remain in you permanently."
“‘Imagination and reality have merged,’ wrote Mander. ‘We have lost control of our images. We have lost control of our minds.’ This placement of images in our brain he calls ‘Video Memory Implantation’ and goes on to state that it is changing the human brain forever. It may now take many years for the human mind to once again break free.”
“That sounds so threatening,” Sam replied. “Am I doomed to forever carry these images and memories inside my brain?”
“The answer, unfortunately, is yes.”
They continued their discussion for some more time, after which Sam Warren left the hotel and went directly to his place. He was feeling quite hopeless and helpless and his sense of isolation increased. He could see that his problem was that he was conditioned and that he was doomed to be in that state forever. He was feeling quite low and decided to go on a vacation. He took leave from work and went to Rome for a holiday.
