Mind Controlby Ethel Gillette
Mind control is more prevalent than you think. A large department store uses it to prevent employees from stealing on the job. The soothing music you hear as you glide up and down the escalators has a powerful tool you don't consciously hear. The message is there, coherent, repetitive, yet so soft only your subconscious hears it. A message that reaches the subconscious only, telling the workers continuously that they would not steal. They work for a caring company. They are important and their job is important. They would not steal. The department store reports employee stealing was cut 68% during the first six months they used the control tapes. A company manufactures the tapes to order. The ethical questions are many. The mind is our most private and sacrosanct domain. We are repulsed by the thought of anyone entering our sacred domain without our knowledge. The pros and cons of mind control are many. Formerly regarded as unbreachable bastions of the mind, thoughts are not only now forced into the open, but our very thought processes can be controlled. We willingly submit to mind control at relaxation, no- smoke and weight control seminars. Biofeedback is used to help us control hypertension and other disorders. This is mind control. The difference is that we are aware of what is being fed into our minds. We agree with the message and know it will help us overcome a deficiency. Going back to the department store, the message is not known to the workers exposed at least 40 hours a week to it. It is not suggesting they do anything wrong. To not steal makes them a more acceptable person. The ethical question here is invasion without knowledge or consent. Who knows what other subliminal messages are being fed to us along with the music. The possibilities are unlimited. A political campaign could influence many voters without their even knowing it. Department stores could have messages to buy-buy-buy. The message could tell us not to worry about budgets - live for today. Think about that for a while. The horror of the Jonestown murders and suicides is an example of mind control with disastrous results. The horror for us is that we don't know what may now be directed towards us. The company that manufactures the tapes with the messages for the subconscious is a business. As a business it takes orders for money. The ethical questions do not influence them. It's up to us. The "consumer beware" concept means that we need to be alert and inquisitive. If we find a means of mind control being used, we need to find out exactly what the hidden message is. Next we need to write our legislators with facts. Just such an action stopped subliminal suggestions flashed on our TV screens a few years ago. We didn't consciously see them. They were aimed at our subconscious. It was advertising during programs. A worker for programming felt it was unethical. He wrote his legislators and after an investigation it was stopped. As I glide up and down the escalators I will still let the music wash over me. The chances of a hidden message in the music are probably small. I do now know that it can be done, so part of my mind will say - I'll take no messages without actually hearing them consciously. How effective it will be I don't know. I do know we live in a very complex world. I'm all for the research of mind control. I'm definitely against its being used on people without their knowledge. Science has never before undertaken the study of anything as complex as the brain. Research has uncovered fascinating new things about the mind and this is necessary and good. Mind control is a fascinating, controversial subject. It's not just emerging. It's being used now. As consumers, how do you feel about it? Ethel Gillette, R.N., B.A., former working R.N. and Nursing Instructor, a free-lance Writer-Columnist, with 47 articles published, has contracts with News America Syndicate, Inc. A winner of the Albert Young Award for a book that best exemplifies the spirit of humanism, giving and optimism, 1987.
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