Manipulation of the public

via GIPHY

“Like its wartime prototype, the post-war propaganda drive was an immense success, as it persuaded not just businessmen but journalists and politicians that “the manufacture of consent,” in Walter Lippmann’s famous phrase, was a necessity throughout the public sphere.”
― Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda

We can learn better how to recognize when our trust has been breached, whether it's by someone tricking us into giving up a password, or someone employing aggressive false advertising, sexually taking advantage of a man's generosity, drawing us into a cult, or stealing the family's money under the guise of being a caregiver.

We are bombarded on a daily basis with people trying to get us to pay them when we shouldn't be. This applies not only to money but to paying them with attention and energy, giving them power, our belief, spreading their word, voting or them, giving recruiters our children, giving websites our photos and information.

Paranoia isn't useful at all, and neither is pronoia. We need to become cautious fact checkers who look beneath the illusions people provide. Doing so, and connecting with other people also have developed this habit and have seen through the fakery, can feel not only secure but exhilarating. Uncovering the truth one fact at a time is a wonderful liberation to celebrate.

Delving into the science of charlatanism and propaganda is not for the faint of heart who prefer to live in denial, or can't handle finding out they've been duped. If you feel attached to being right, and aren't open to any possible undermining facts, I'd suggest you question why that is.

While the new use of the term "social engineering" refers to the securities industry, with common ploys to coax information out of individuals using computer technology, it descends from the original meaning, which is about tricking the masses to behave as someone with a profit agenda wants them to: the hacking of humanity. That's generally done by government sponsored disinformation. This blog includes all meanings of the term, both old and new.

In the United States, finding someone alive now who is completely unaffected by an organization's covert deliberate control of how their personality develops would be nearly impossible. Religious indoctrination, Corporatocracy's advertizing through trends and fashions, history textbook falsifications, emotional tugging on the news, military propaganda, political rhetoric, medical inconsistencies, food tricks, and other methods have molded everyone to some degree.

Some famous 20th Century proponents of sociotechnics were:

Freud's nephew,  Edward Bernays, the "father of Public Relations," who wrote Propaganda, and brought his uncle Freud's ideas to the United States, pioneering PR's scientific persuasion techniques, "the engineering of consent," and wrote Crystallizing Public Opinion.

The Canadian philosopher of communications theory, Marshall McLuhan, who created the meme: "the medium is the message," then wrote the best seller The Medium is the Massage about the influence of TV and movies, and also coined the meme turn on, tune in, drop out, popularized by Timothy Leary.

Propaganda has always been used through history, but in the 1930s, it was perfected using science of people like the Harvard Radical Behaviorist psychologist B.F. Skinner, author of Walden Two, and inventor of the Skinner Box (operant conditioning chamber). It measured responses of animals in relation to their environment as it was set up to reinforce their behaviors by giving them food or electro-shocking them.

The Russian Ivan Pavlov was also a behaviorist psychologist similarly using reinforcement to condition responses, most known for making dogs salivate when they heard the bell ring that they associated with being fed.



Some social engineering examples from the past:

The Oracle of Delphi was a fissure in Mt. Parnassus that emitted gasses that caused seizures in local goats and goatherds. Priests took advantage of people's superstitious nature and created the temple of Apollo, setting up the Pythia, who straddled the fissure. While the women would rave from the fumes, something like speaking in tongues, the priests would "interpret." Thus, they could control the course of events while seeming to be neutral, saying the dictates came from deities.

Aztec priests told warriors they would go straight to the sun god in the afterlife if they died in battle.

Ulysses, the head of the Greek army, employed the Trojan Horse to take over Troy by making the Trojans think his army had kindly left them a wooden horse outside the city to be nice. When the Trojans opened the gates to accept the gift, the soldiers inside the hollow horse were allowed inside.

Madam Blavatsky, a globalist spy, popularized Theosophy for the sake of balance of power and convinced people she was sharing spiritual information from enlightened sources -- who were actually covers for her CounterIntelligence superiors. Theosophy is the core of New Age. Theosophy Society's Lucis Press publishes UN documents.


Current organizations admitted outwardly focused on sociotechnics are:

The Tavistock Institute, in Britain, influenced heavily by Freud and his associates, created to influence society through trends.

CIA's Counterintelligence, which arose from the OSS, employing Nazi mind-control techniques, puts out false information to throw their enemies off track.


Some CIA fronts:

Esalen Institute

Human Ecology Society

Air America

United Fruit Company  

American Veterans Committee


Many intelligent people become aware that mainstream news is not honest about many topics, and become wary of mainstream culture altogether. CounterIntelligence targets those dissidents who want to know the truth by giving them some truth mixed with vital lies to throw them off the track of what's going on. They also weaken them through addictions, distractions, smear campaigns.

Unfortunately, it's easy for truth-seekers to get caught in the traps set by counterculture figures they trust who put out information, lead groups, infiltrating and hijacking organizations, getting people hyped up to believe things that are not true, and thus looking ridiculous, and losing credibility. Looking at layer after layer is necessary before coming to accuracy. Diligently looking at funding and Institutional associations is required to vet information-carriers. Being willing to be wrong about passionately held counterculture beliefs takes maturity.


Possible surprises -- US Intelligences agents were involved in creating:

the psychedelic movement


the New Age


the idea that aliens are interacting with humans

a vast number of dangerous cults

Al-Qaeda/ISIS



If you enjoy this website, you may enjoy reading entertaining fiction that acknowledges that this is the world we live in. I'd be very grateful if you want to check out The Agents of the Nevermind series. Visit Insubordinate Books and sign up for the mailing list to learn about new books, and read a free e-book, if it resonates with you, in the meantime.