Brainwashing – What Is It Really? A Simple Explanation
▲ Camp K / Maacama Hill group sharing There is debate among academics about whether brainwashing really exists. Those who say that brainwashing is not real consider the term to be a mystical and therefore unscientific use of language, one that suggests the existence of some sort of secret technology that is somehow shared among its perpetrators. Those who say brainwashing does exist point to the radical personality changes among cult devotees, which are sometimes so severe as to enable their participation in depraved acts that cause harm to themselves (Jonestown) or others (Manson). The existence of extraordinary behavior suggests the possibility of an extraordinary cause. Here, I suggest a simple three-stage approach that I think can potentially harmonize both positions. My suggestion is that narcissism leads naturally to gaslighting and that gaslighting, as it intensifies, eventually develops into what is often called brainwashing. There is nothing opaque about the process. There is no need for its practicioners to have any special knowledge: the process is simply the result of a set of common strategies through which malignant narcissists manage social relationships. The explanation lies in the narcissistic personality of the cult leader. Narcissism is, in a strange sense, a highly social malady because one’s specialness and importance can only be measured in relation to that of other people. It is not enough for the narcissistic leader to tell himself that he is special; he needs others to validate his self concept. Everyone around him must be made to recognize his importance. It is this narcissistic quest for social validation that I think is the essence of the vast majority of cults. The leader has to convince others that he is special; otherwise they will not treat him as such and there will be a disconnect between his worldview and the values and behaviors of those around him. He cannot allow any such dissonance. He has to find people who can be persuaded to accept his own exaggerated self concept and then surround himself with such people. He does this by lying, by a particular form of lying that is called gaslighting. The five essential aspects of gaslighting flow from the needs of the narcissist.
Lying is the prerequisite starting point because there is no legitimate reason why the leader should be considered special. He has to invent reasons. I use the word lying here with the qualification that in some cases the perpetrators are likely so psychologically enmeshed in their distorted view of reality that they no longer realize that the untruths that they are telling are indeed falsehoods.
Questioning the Victim’s Reality. There is going to be a battle of realities, of worldviews. The victim has to be persuaded to accept the worldview of the leader. Claiming mystical visions and promoting a unique ideology are two tools by which the worldview of the victim can be challenged. The victim must accept the worldview of the leader because it is this worldview that justifies the leader’s status as a uniquely special individual.
Trivialization. If the leader is more important then the follower must be less important. Trivialization also refers to trivializing the thoughts and experiences of the victim. What if the victim brings his own visions or his own ideology to the table? Those must be shown to be lacking: they might be absorbed into the leader’s superior worldview, or dismissed as inferior, or even ridiculed. They are the small contributions of a small person. Distance can be created by lifting the leader up, but also by bringing the follower down. Trivialization is a key part of breaking the victim’s sense of reality so that the leader’s can be substituted.
Coercion to some degree is always going to be necessary in order to create a protective intellectual space separating the leader’s thought world from actual reality; the victim must be kept within the bounds of the former. Coercion can encompass such diverse elements as fear of ridicule, fear of divine punishment in the afterlife, fear on behalf of loved ones, fear of disapproval, and, ultimately, fear of physical violence or death. But it is all ultimately to protect the claim to specialness of the leader. These fears can be created by words but also by negative examples. One crucial result of fear is self-censorship, the process by which victims avoid information that is critical of the cult.
Scapegoating. But what if the leader fails to demonstrate that he is special? What if he falls short in some way? What if his predictions do not come true? What if there comes a moment when reality simply must be acknowledged? What if the leader is arrested, for example? Then the failure must always be somebody else’s fault, if at all possible the fault of the victim. Sometimes, in a disturbed reversal of agency, the victim is even blamed for the leader’s own freely taken decisions.
Gaslighting is as natural to the malignant narcissist as building a web is to a spider. It is not in essence something that has to be invented, or learned, or reasoned out. Now, if we look at five key elements of “brainwashing” it is clear that they closely shadow the behaviors we refer to as gaslighting. The difference is in the scope, the complexity and the intensity: there are generally larger numbers of people involved, including representatives of the leader who take on some or all of the gaslighting functions, and the isolation of the victim tends to be more intense, although the recent phenomenon of people being radicalized online has made it clear that such isolation can be purely intellectual and not necessarily geographical. Victims are separated from society, either physically or cognitively (isolation); their attention is monopolized and they are brought to a point of mental, and sometimes physical, exhaustion so that their sense of reality can be manipulated; they are made to feel inadequate (trivialization); fear is employed (coercion). It is very hard to say where gaslighting ends and brainwashing begins. I would argue that they are essentially the same thing. If they are the same thing then it follows that if gaslighting is real then so is brainwashing, although some might take exception to the word itself. After all, it is not as if the brain is actually wiped clean.
All of this flows somewhat inexorably, in my view, from the underlying malignant narcissism of the leader. This does not mean that the same tactics cannot be used by groups that are not led by a narcissist, such as government agencies or corporations. The tools are available for anyone who is callous enough to make use of them.
I think that keeping in mind the connection between narcissism, gaslighting and brainwashing can help to provide us with a clear and simple model for the understanding of cults in general. If we consider known cults like Scientology, Unificationism and MAGA, it is not at all hard to see how all the above pieces fit together to create the cult experience that harms so many innocent people. Graham C. Lester - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - "Coercive Control in Cultic Groups in the United Kingdom" (July 2022) by The Family Survival Trust: Respondents shared how they were often made to question their own perceptions in favour of the false realities presented by the cults. Gaslighting is a common component of coercive control used in abusive cultic groups. Said one respondent, ‘I questioned if my memories were even real and if I had imagined things because I was gaslighted and treated like a criminal.’
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Gaslighting: To manipulate (someone) by psychological means into doubting their own sanity. "The teachings stated that your perception could not be trusted – that your perception was just a dream, a hallucination, which was then used to gaslight you. Anger was taught to be a delusion, meaning that if you were angry you would be called mentally unstable and deluded. Teachings are abuse enabling, stating you should see an abuser as your teacher." "Every time I raised a critical voice, I was told that I had ‘doubt’. When I talked about leaving and instead taking care of myself, I was told that I was egoistic and that I had the ‘bodhisattva ideal’ (i.e. to practice Buddhism for the sake of all sentient beings)." "I was labelled a liar if I found material that challenged the witnesses or a girl spoke out about being abused. I was told not to listen to her as she’s crazy and a liar." "I was told that I was full of delusion, lacked wisdom, that my perceptions were incorrect, [and] that I was angry, bitter, mentally unstable. Teachings suggested that all personal needs were just a result of your ego, which must be destroyed." This research demonstrated gaslighting used as a technique to thwart victims’ senses of reality, so that they accepted the false realities presented by the cults. Doubt and criticism were rapidly shut down to quell further dissent. The examples here convey how a victim is made to question their own perceptions, then labelled with a pejorative (e.g. ‘crazy’, ‘liar’), and then told they are hallucinating or deluded and cannot trust their own thoughts. This creates a sense of confusion in the victim that aids in further destabilising them.
