...research has shown that in the first few milliseconds of our perceiving something we do not only unconsciously comprehend what it is, but decide whether we like it or not; the cognitive unconscious" presents our awareness with not just the identity of what we see, but an opinion about it. Our emotions have a mind of their own, one which can hold views quite independently of our rational mind - Daniel Goleman (Emotional Intelligence)

It is a great source of error to believe that there is no perception in the soul besides those of which it is conscious - Gotffried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716)

Children’s television and MTV, in fact, are the easiest places to launch counterculture missiles. The more harmless or inane the forum, the more unsuspecting the audience – Douglas Rushkoff (Media Virus)

Subliminal messages permeate television programs, computer games, magazines, billboards, products, and musical productions. They are, however, not limited to the ambience of the young. They are just one of the weapons in the arsenal of psychopathic corporations whose entire modus operandi concerns profit and dehumanization. All that is truly aesthetic, traditional, cultural or substantial, merely stands in the way of their monopolistic stratagems, their aggressive, relentless efforts at reducing the entire human race to a body of narcissistic, sense-infatuated, desensitized, amoral, immoral or actively criminal "smiling depressives."

I think we are destroying the minds of America and that has been one of my lifelong ambitions - John Kricfalusi (creator of the Ren and Stimpy Show)

The language of business is not a language of the soul or the language of humanity. It’s a language of indifference, it’s a language of separation, secrecy and hierarchy – Anita Rodderick (creator of the Body Shop)

 

…the corporation remains as it was at the time of its origins, as a mad business institution in the middle of the nineteenth century, and legally designated “person” designed to valorize self interest and invalidate moral concern. Most people would find its “personality” abnormal, even psychopathic, in a human being, yet curiously we accept it in society’s most powerful institutions - Joel Bakan (The Corporation)

Business is business we say; people are merely selling their products. If only this were true. A little research and objective observation tells a different tale. The elite at the top of the world's major advertising agencies are extraordinarily educated and intuitive people trained by private schools and prestigious think tanks. Although it may come as news to the consumer, it is a fact that selling products is only a minor concern for them. Though it may sound rather bizarre, it is their job to implant political and aesthetically conditioning motifs within the minds of their erstwhile viewers. These implanted messages, more often than not, contradict our conscious drives. The elites to whom I refer, know a great deal about human and social psychology. They understand the operations of the human body and mind. They have made an indepth study of the complex nature of desire, emotion, libido, and appetite, and their researches have even taken them into occult fields. Arcane subjects such as Astro-Theology, sabeanism, numerology, and ceremonial magic are assiduously studied. It would appear that the advertisers consider their logos in the same manner as a trained sorcerer considers the various talismans, amulets, symbols, mudras, mantras, and rhythms that employs in his work to disaffect minds and enhance personal power.

Down through the centuries, symbols are memorized. They become part of the collective phylogenetic reservoir. They are in our "Race Memory." When such symbols are used, they invariably stimulate reactions, often emotional and sexual. Some symbols were, and still are, specifically designed to affect the limbic centers of the brain. In primitive cultures we hear of the voodoo doctor and his attendant zombie. Before he fell under the spell of his master, the zombie was a live, active, thinking person. His will was weakened because he was slowly and surreptitiously administered the juice of the Datura plant, which drugged him into state of listlessness and passivity. Each day, lest he revive, the zombie had to ingest more of the potion.

Today, we see a similar process at work, only with greater frequency and over a larger demographic. In this case, the "Datura" is not organic but auditory, visual, and digital. We have technological witchdoctors and cyber-space sorcerers. Their particular concoction of spells are cast via techniques that go by names such as Tele-hypnosis, Metacontrast, Hemisync, Synaesthenia, and Embedding. New techniques, yes, but with the same deadly effect as any past voodoo, sorcery, or telepathy. Recently, a professional hypnotist declared that the very same skills used to lull the mind into a state of suggestibility are unquestionably used by advertising agents.

A century and a half after its birth, the modern business corporation, and artificial person made in the image of a human psychopath, now is seeking to remake real people in its image - Joel Bakan (The Corporation)

We must all face the fact that our leaders are certifiably insane or worse – William S. Burroughs

You don't understand…It's not about money...It's about power and influence - Michael Ovitz (interview with Mike Rosenfield)

Yes, it appears that the "enchanters" of the story books are alive, well, and busy. In one sense, the advertisers are like the “Leonardos” and “Michaelangelos” of the modern world. Moreover, they are still under oligarchic patronage. They are, however, not utilizing their prodigious endowments for the spiritual or cultural uplift of mankind. They are master persuaders and deal in behavioral and motivational sciences. Their modus operendi is the systematic erosion of the moral, intellectual, and spiritual foundations of society. Cannot the spiritual vacuity and moral degradation of our century be traced to the corruption peddled by these Apollonian persuaders in their gleaming corporate penthouses?

No one's really worrying about what it's (advertising to children) teaching impressionable youth. Hey, I'm in the business of convincing people to buy things they don't need - Advertising Executive (quoted from Business Week, August 11, 1997)

 

…In boy’s advertising…antisocial behavior in pursuit of a product is a good thing - Disney Marketing Executive

We readily accept that other species on the planet can be trained to have their behavior altered. We know that this manipulation occurs either by direct manipulation and training, or by the gradual change to a creature’s environment and habitat beyond its conscious awareness. Although it may sound controversial, the situation is no different with the control of humanity.

In the cybernetic age, the individual becomes increasingly subject to manipulation. His work, his consumption, and his leisure are manipulated by advertising, by ideologies, by what Skinner calls “positive reinforcements.” The individuals loses his active, responsible role in the social process; he becomes completely “adjusted” and learns that any behavior, act, thought, or feeling which does not fit into the general scheme puts him at a severe disadvantage; in fact he is what he is supposed to be…What has happened in modern industrial society is that traditions, and common values, and genuine social personal ties with others have largely disappeared. The modern mass man is isolated and lonely, even though he is part of a crowd; he has no convictions which he could share with others, only slogans and ideologies he gets from the communications media - Erich Fromm (The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness)

Without personal study or experience, the reader will be inclined to balk at these facts. The oligarchs have made sure that little information regarding this subject reaches the public. Although there is an unbelievable barrage of symbolism in our world, and though it is known that billions of dollars are involved in their production, distribution, and monitoring, the average person has little awareness of the fatal impact they are having on his life. Walking around decorated with the logos and brand names of exploiting corporations and conglomerates is considered normal and even chic today. Although thousands of classical musical and artistic creations are debauched under their hand, and though our visual space is cluttered with ad-copy and billboards, few in authority raise a murmur against it.

The man who does not know what it means to be under psychic hypnosis, is probably already under it - Vernon Howard

The world consists of imaginary people, claiming imaginary virtues and suffering from imaginary happiness - ibid

Although here may be fewer physical frontiers for man to conquer, there is an entire virtual kingdom to explore and colonize. There is cyberspace and data-space, and the so-called “information highway.” In the virtual reality, symbolic motifs can proliferate and literally infest our minds. Scientists have, for example, discovered that there are 250,000 miles of neural threads in the brain, enough to stretch from earth to the moon. On each micrometer of these threads there are over 240,000 bits of information. This data is, however, not stored as words but as pictograms or composite images. Moreover, there are thirty seven sensory inputs to the brain, not only the five commonly known. The architects of control know how to communicate to these inner senses, and the damage they have done is incalculable.

The man who understands a symbol not only opens himself to the objective world but at the same time succeeds in emerging from his personal situation and reaching a comprehension of the universal...thanks to the symbol, the individual experience is "awoken" and transmuted into a spiritual act - Mircea Eliade

Cynics who continue to doubt whether symbols and images have any lasting negative affect on consciousness should remember and study the most recent example of mass control, that of Nazi Germany. The Nazis openly used ritual choreography, ancient symbols and rallying chants, powerful mystical logos and regalia, and so on, to force men into a hive mentality. We now know that Hitler and his cronies were deeply involved with powerful occult societies and were fascinated by ancient mysticism. Hitler sent agents throughout the world, to visit tribes and sects in order to procure occult works and doctrines, and to learn how to employ magical arts. Although it might sound controversial, the same arcane archive is made use of today, not only by advertisers in Hollywood and on Madison Avenue, but by leading Evangelists and other churchmen. It is used by the heads of leading corporations. As financier J. P. Morgan once said, Millionaires don't use astrology...The billionaires do!

Every news anchor and talk show host subtly emphasizes stereotypes that force men into consensus trance. Every movie-maker of significance uses subliminal and subtextual devices to embed ideas in the minds of his audience. Every high-end set designer knows what symbols and shapes to use so that his demographic is emotionally attracted and ingratiated. Every informed broadcaster and media executive knows how to provide surrogates for what is missing within us, and how to help us hide from ourselves in the "light" of collective. They know what kind of power the super-lit, florescent, convenient, user-friendly, one-seasoned world of their manufacture has over the human mind. They also know that what psychosis will occur if those under their control are not provided with the illusion of freedom and choice. This is one of the main reasons why we are given many pseudo-choices, particularly between products. This is the why there are so many dialectical divisions in the corporate world - for example, Levis versus Jordac, Coke versus Pepsi, ABC versus CNN.  Stones versus Beatles, Rockers versus Mods. Letterman versus Leno, Russia versus USA, Republican versus Democrat, Conservative versus Liberal, Catholic versus Protestant, Atheist versus Believer, Gay versus Straight, Black versus White, Arab versus Jew, Rich versus Poor, and even Male versus Female, ad nauseaum. Under the guise of plenty and choice, man's ability to choose well is eroded. His true intelligence is assaulted and he becomes incapable of deciding anything for himself. In the end, his good is whatever his masters say it is. His freedom is whatever they feel like bestowing. His thoughts are whatever makes him safe and secure in the prison created by his overlords.

Advertising is designed to generate an inner sense of conflict with the self - Bernard McGrave PhD

Throughout the ages it has been considered normal and even exemplary behavior to die for a flag. We still assault others over a sport or political allegiance, feel superior due to the clothes, home, or car that we possess. Ours is a time obsessed with comparison and prestige, over-achievement, and the projection of fantasy into reality. It does not matter a jot whether nature, animals, children, the elderly, the invalid, or other nations and indigenous peoples suffer. I have traced many levels of psychosis and multiple personality dementia, as well as teen and adult dysfunction and sexual criminality, to the effects, through the years, of advertising.

Obviously, a man can never gain true and lasting happiness or independence if he does not own his mind and emotions. If he is colonized and branded, then he inevitably loses charge of his own destiny. He becomes emotionally and spiritually naked and his children inherit a bleak but brightly-lit and busy dystopia without meaning or depth.

The man of today gives rise to the man of tomorrow. And tomorrow's man will not be the inhabitant of a secure utopia where freedom, justice, and truth are cherished. On the contrary, he will be an obsessed, addicted victim suffering psychic and emotional impotency and enmeshed in guilt and conflict as a result of it. His inner life is a miasma of unfulfilled desires and misplaced allegiances. He is under the "Hex." Once the connection and rapport with the inner self is occluded, man becomes a slave of external approval. Consequently, those who command our adoration must be like ourselves or be those who appear to possess a greater abundance of those chimeras which we believe to be of value. Western man replaces life with lifestyle and continues to award himself, and those he gives birth to, for knowing, as speedily and vacantly as possible, everything there is to know about everyone and everything else in the world other than the Self. He sees but rarely observes. He thinks, but rarely with his own mind and rarely about his own moral and psychological welfare. He fights and dies for the preservation and sovereignty of friends, family, countries, nations, and ideals, but is estranged from himself and bereft of personal psychic sovereignty and emotional immunity.

The twenty-first century will be the era of the World Controllers…The older dictators fell because they could never supply their subjects with enough bread, enough circuses, enough miracles, and mysteries. Under a scientific dictatorship, education will really work…most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution. There seems to be no good reason why a thoroughly scientific dictatorship should ever be overthrown - Aldous Huxley (Brave New World Revisited)

Tragically, that which man consumes also consumes him. Sickened and desperate in his own soul, and knowing next to nothing about his own essence, he charges back and forth vainly with a thousand and one ideas and plans, pathetically administering to the maladies of his equally debilitated neighbors and fellow humans. His mind is plagued with "media viruses" and his libido rages within from all kinds of toxic programming. By divorcing ourselves from our center and losing our once natural sense of interior life, we become a generation who must have but cannot be, who know what but not how to think. Persona-drives and limbic-drives predominate and compel us to live on the periphery of Being, on the surface of ourselves. We do not own our own thoughts and yet believe ourselves capable of "independent" thought and choice. True, thought can be creative, but thoughts can also be created and implanted by agencies that seek to enslave the soul and confound the natural intelligence. Pestilence and injustice ride their steeds through our world, but they go unseen, sowing the seeds of doom among the innocent and pure, within hearts and minds unprotected and without awareness of what is happening to them.

When told that man lives in delusion everyone thinks of himself as the exception – hence his delusion - Vernon Howard

 

Emile Durkheim called this phenomenon ‘anomie” and found that it was the main cause of suicide which had been increasing with the growth of industrialization. He referred by anomie to the destruction of all traditional social bonds, due to the fact that all truly collective organization had become secondary to the state and that all genuine social life had been annihilated. He believed that people living in the modern political state are ‘a disorganized dust of individuals - Erich Fromm (Anatomy of Human Destructiveness)

The subversive forces that operate as described, and which deal so contemptuously with the underclasses they fear, can be sanctioned, penalized, and even overthrown, once we return to the "Symbolic Literacy" that was natural to our forebears. When the "inner eye" is opened and when Pattern Recognition becomes as natural as breathing, the tables will be turned on the subversive malefactor and tyrants. After we develop even a rudimentary critical intelligence, it will be then that Truth will decide to once more return and dwell among us. Our indifference and neglect has banished both Truth and Virtue to the voids. To welcome them back into the human circle, and to be nourished again by their company, we must first adopt a zero-tolerance attitude toward any living or corporate entity whose agendas and artifice flies in the face of reason. We must have zero-tolerance for those entities seeking to the desecrate the Earth and profit from the humiliation and impoverishment of all sentient and non-sentient life-forms.

The German sociologist George Simmel once said that the educated person was someone who knew how to find out that which he did not already know. If he were alive today he would perhaps agree that the time has come for humanity to get smart, get educated, and get into "the know” about the psychic dictatorship that has claimed the sanity and souls of millions. As the Ad-Men are want to say - new hot slogans and memes are needed - to appear emblazoned on the virtual billboard that looms over the troubled and hypermanic world…REVOLUTION OR REVELATION?

For years they have been studying you. The time has come for you to study them!