Are You Brainwashed Or Being Manipulated?

brainwashMost think that many out there have been brainwashed. It doesn’t occur to a person, they may be the one who is brainwashed. Odds are they have been brainwashed if not at this very moment, then at some point in their life. I know this is true in my case!

I have most definitely been led astray. I’ve been tricked and manipulated by people and by advertising and various other things that make up my environment, over the years. If this is the case, how can do I know, I am not brainwashed at this very moment? Do I really have everything right, all the time? Somehow I doubt that.

If you take the time to consider this, you may come to the same conclusion. If that happens, you may opt to be a bit kinder to people you consider to be “brainwashed” since you are probably one of them.

Neptune, right? The veil drops on all of us, eventually.
Pluto.  Eventually most people find themselves alone in the dark.

What do you think of this? Are you brainwashed or being manipulated at this time? If not, have you ever been? How do you guard against such a thing?

19 thoughts on “Are You Brainwashed Or Being Manipulated?”

  1. anonymoushermit

    I bought a Madonna album. Later hated it! I don’t hate Madonna, in any way, but I felt I was duped. The album was promoted as a great album, classic, etc, etc. So, in a way I was brainwashed.

    It was one of her albums from the early 90’s, a Jazzy album!

    1. …. Because everybody says it was great you were brain washed.. Not because they influenced ur opinion, you were brain Washed… No

  2. Though I am a highly educated and skeptical person, I was brainwashed on the Iraq Wars, 9-11, Afghanistan, etc…When I finally got time to look into these matters, I realized that the media narrative was nearly 100% lies…Now, I don’t believe anything that I can’t get some confirmation on, especially from the media.
    So brainwashing can backfire on the perpetrator.

  3. I think my Aries moon sextile Mercury in Gemini actually helps with this. Intellectual independence. I am not attached to ideas no matter where they come from. It’s unreasonable to say it never happens, but not frequently, esp as an adult. As you said, brainwashing, manipulation, influence, is something we all encounter at some point.

    In relationships, otoh, with Neptune,and Venus…I can get mixed up, and I truly don’t know how to guard against it.

  4. Social media’s and advertisers’ primary function is to emotionally entice the consumer to buy their product or service. The consumer usually only experiences a temporary high from the purchase then returns to buying again to fill the emotional void.

  5. It’s all about thoughts that are put into your head. Thoughts are energy. In essence this is a spiritual battle. You’re energy vs. theirs.

    Of course I’ve been brainwashed, I’ve been poisoned. The moment you turn any program on that feeds on your fears, this happens. Sometimes you innocently watch TV, maybe a political program, and the people get so worked up that you are effected by the energy they put out. What was a peace of mind gets disturbed by other people.

    An exchange of energy, however, is normal. You don’t have to be in physical contact. Take this blog for example. Elsa puts very personal things out here. I read it, get affected and think of her. This thinking of her sends energy to her (sort of).

    As I said it’s a spiritual battle. So the way to combat it, is to not focus on the brainwashing, but your own inner power. On who you really are, that would be your sun.

  6. We may disagree on the meaning of brainwashed. And I refer specifically to adults, not children.

    Brainwashed by several dictionaries implies ‘intensive or forced indoctrination that changes or replaces your old beliefs or values. Where a person loses the ability to think critically or independently. Which is not the same as people blindly accepting what they are told, shown, etc. Those people are willing participants because their belief system readily allows them to accept what ever they are told.

    Arguably, for children one could call learned behavior from parents or culture that results in racism, etc. I consider more along the lines of brainwashing or conditioning.

    A lot of today’s processed food are chemically designed to get you to eat more (research “dopamine”) and at the same time provide little nutrition, which induces people to eat more without realizing it. As Jayne has stated, marketing knows how to manipulate consumers.

    “Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure centers. Dopamine also helps regulate movement and emotional response, and it enables us not only to see rewards, but to take action to move toward them.” – Psychology Today

    But the old Latin saying is as apt now as it ever was: Caveat Emptor – Let the buyer beware, and consumer beware and especially media watchers and social websites.

  7. When I was very young, I was somewhat brainwashed by media influences, but the older I got, the more I questioned. Now I don’t trust anything unless I read it in several sources that aren’t the MSM.

    I like facts, so if I hear about something, that’s what I investigate on the internet. The MSM just pushes a narrative and has an agenda. Their fake news reporting has done such a disservice to this country and they’ve killed their own reputation in the process. Shame on them.

    I turned them off a long time ago.

  8. anonymoushermit

    To me, most people under 25, or even 21, are still trying to figure things out. It’s easy to be brainwashed when your brain isn’t even 100% developed yet, which happens at age 25. But 21 is good enough, for me.

    I guess the best way to lessen brainwashing is to discern, and probably even be a little suspicious of everything.

  9. They scariest kind of brainwashing is the kind you work on yourself. In order to self protect, you’ll self talk your self into almost anything. Like the movie quote, “You can’t handle the truth”!

  10. Religion is a form of brainwashing. The reason most of them focus on indoctrinating children is because their undeveloped brains embed the information. Catholics historically run wayward and abandoned children orphanages to have a fresh crop of young minds to manipulate. Not to mention adoption over abortion beliefs. If they can convince a young woman to have a baby instead of terminating they have a new child to indoctrinate.The baptists have their missionaries who focus on youth and vacation bible schools to lure in the kids with games and parties. These cults know exactly what they are doing by brainwashing the children. They get life long believer if they get them while they’re young. Its harder to convince an adult with a developed, critical thinking mind to ignore facts and fall for fantasy fiction about arks and talking snakes so they naturally gravitate to the children. Religion is the number one cause of wars, violence and murder on the planet. The sooner people “lift the veil” they sooner our species can get on with it. Maybe Neptune’s transit through Picses and Pluto’s transit through Capricorn will finally show what a delusion religion (neptune) is doing to our social structures and destroy it (pluto).

      1. Explain your concrete evidence for sacred, and proof that a “god” the one you believe in and not one that people who were born on a different continent believe in “created” anything? Its simply NOT rational to believe in mythology. If proof exists I will happily take it to heart. None does so why bother perpetuating some system that merely pits people against each other for not believing in the same mythical system. Its destructive and divisive and does not serve the greater good. People dont need myths to exist as loving caring human beings. It is simply pious to believe that one has some “right” belief about life when all we need to remember is one thing: BE KIND. The rest is dogma and produces hypocrisy and self righteousness and pack mentality. My point about the brainwashing is that when you give children a dose of it at a young age, they will cling to it forever and the religions of the world know this and prey on the young because they know that rational people will not fall as easily for it.

        1. LuckyStars, I think you’re painting organized religion with a very broad brush. Sure, there are those in it that are just corrupt or have bad intentions, but most just want to spread kindness and do good through everyday acts of kindness. Religion teaches values to help people in life. Children need guidance and when they get older they can decide what they believe on their own.

        2. I think kind of illustrates what Elsa was saying. How can you be sure that rationalism/your approach, isn’t used to brainwash, the way that you claim religion is used?

  11. everybody’s been brainwashed. we live in a culture that pushes norms. for better or for worse.
    though there are greater and lesser degrees of manipulation. abusive people tend to be really good at it (gaslighting..)

  12. I think its good to have some sort of checks and balances within myself or some kind of criteria for what ideas I will buy into. For me, its simple: if an idea suggests, implies or states that I am missing something, need to attain something to be happy or am not whole in and of myself, I dont buy it. That wipes out about 98% of all ideas and makes me hard to manipulate. Not impossible, because I still have my blindspots, but at least I have a core principle.

    Sometimes its not easy. The messages can be subtle. It takes a really fine toothed comb of discernment to get to it. And sometimes Ill just try on ideas to see how they feel. Wear them for a while and see how they match up against that criteria I talked about. I give myself that freedom to try on ideas and throw them away if they dont hold water. And most dont.

  13. Brainwash.
    My spiritually oriented sister now hates and identifies strongly with a certain way of thinking.
    Not sure what happened, a large part of our relationship is shut down now because we can no longer “discuss” certain topics.
    Very sad.

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