The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing

Great book for the information and for the author's harrowing experiences in war-era Europe, and for his experiences working with POW camp brainwashees. More importantly (IMHO) he delves deep into how totalitarian regimes use propaganda as a tool to cause people to censor their own thoughts, words and deeds. A POWERFUL lesson for our time with many contemporary parallels.The book is well-written, but please keep in mind, this is a book for serious study, not laid out for entertainment value. If you are expecting a novel, this will seem dry and boring to you. If you are expecting a dusty textbook from the 50's, you will be pleasantly surprised. That said, the modern reader may need to pace themselves to get through the material, there is a lot, and the author is not intent on conserving paper nor ink.

Right on!. Insightful!This book from the 50's is so applicable to right now. I urge every thinking person to read it today. The Information is urgently needed.

A must read! Even though published in the 50's, it is essential reading to interpret the current times! Tough to get through because of the seriousness of the material and the deceit and devastation he documents! Every H.S. senior and college-age student should have to read this book! Knowing the content of this book helped me understand the psychological operations that are happening today!

This book was written in 1956, but could have been written last week. Meerloo experienced the horrors of Nazi totalitarianism and, after the war, was involved with the psychological evaluations of tortured prisoners of war and of some of Hitler's compatriots. Meerloo examines what it is that can make a mass of people fall into outrageous, deadly beliefs.We would like to believe 'that was then, this is now'. The truth is. little has changed. We see the same things today as Meeloo saw then. And he understood them better than most of us. There is a lot to learn in this book.

The Rape of the Mind attempts to depict the strange transformation of the free human mind into an automatically responding machine. In the modern era, this transformation was previously executed overtly (e.g., the former Soviet Union and Nazi Germany) but is currently being brought about by cultural undercurrents and deliberate, covert experiments in the service of an ideology. Accordingly, the rape of the mind is the psychological weapon of choice used to overwhelm, invade, usurp and pillage a person’s mental faculties so that an opportunist can imprint his thoughts upon the minds of those he plans to use and destroy.Subsequently, in this book, Meerloo successfully communicates the specifics of planned and deliberate mental coercion (e.g., torture) and moves to the more general question of the influences of the modern world that tend to robotize and automate people (e.g., technology). Likely the most important section of the book is Part IV (“In Search of Defenses”) where the author talks about individual freedom (our “mental backbone”) and the steps a person can take away from menticide and toward liberation of the mind. An urgent lesson the text will undoubtedly teach all its readers is that if we are to survive as free people, we must face up to this problem of ideologically inspired mental coercion and all its ramifications.Totalitarianism is a threat to everyone because it can arise anywhere, anytime. And, “Totalitaria” can develop albeit unwittingly even in a so-called free, democratic society. As the author posits, totalitaria grows from the soil of mental chaos and verbal confusion; hence these two base materials are typically produced with healthy amounts of fear. What lies at the core of the strategy of menticide is the destruction of hope, which keeps the mind alive. If you make a man afraid and make him believe he has no future, his spirit dies. Menticide therefore becomes highly improbable only when a castle of hope is built inside the mind.The only objections I have about this book are based on two implicit assumptions the author makes: (I) That psychology can save man. Meerloo suggests that if psychology can be weaponized for destruction, it can also be engineered for healing. Yet, this rejects the concrete reality that people are not mere minds. They are also spiritual beings with souls. Clearly then, as the author himself admits, if faith and hope preserve a man, there must be something greater in man that his mental faculties. (II) That people are inherently good. Again, as the author admits, human begins can be corrupted with ease and there is no essential difference between the victim and the totalitarian: both have no control over their deeply held criminal thoughts and feelings. Power corrupts and the majority delights in being lorded over so they can shirk responsibility. If all people were inherently good, this reality of humanity would not exist. Would not a more plausible explanation, then, be that all human beings are corrupted and there is an innate tendency toward totalitarianism and conformity? This implies what is at stake is much greater than the domain of psychology.In the end, we live in a time where our luxurious habits and accessible technology appeal more to our mental passivity than our spiritual alertness. The passive are easily duped. We also live in a time when being a critic of “The Narrative” leads to shaming and/or public crucifixion. Totalitaria is always searching for social sinners and critics of the system because dissent is equivalent to blasphemy when the State is god. Yet, with the foreknowledge supplied in this book, those who yearn for freedom will be forearmed with powerful tools in their struggle for freedom and maturity.

Obrigado pelo cuidado na embalagem dos livros. Atrasou, mas chegou em perfeito estado de conservação.

See through propaganda techniques and understand the human pysche and how we are manipulated and how we can resist. Educate yourself with this book by an expert.

It's interesting to note that this book, despite being written before I was born, actually deals with some themes which are very relevant even today. Specifically that used by the North Korean's in the Korea war, the Nazis in the second world war, and the Russians. Actually I can see some comparisons with Russia's war today. Less so much to do with the battlefield tactics, so much as the way the Soviets then, used mind control to literally fool the way through their actions. In a similar way as the Russian press have justified their aggression, through twisting the truth, to suit their agenda. This Is a relevant book today.

it is a very rare book and giving the good information on psychotic behaviour in humans....

buy it, read it- you will understand yourself and others better!