Is it possible to brainwash someone?

Brainwashing is an extreme form of "thought reform," but does it actually work? Tune in to this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com to find out.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. I'm about to brainwash Charles W.

(00:20):
Chuck Bryant. You can't brainwash me? Yes, I can? You
capitalist pig dog. That's not working. Oh, it will believe me.
I haven't even gotten started, buddy. I'm so confident in
my abilities that brainwats you that I can even tell
you how I'm doing it. While I'm doing it. You're
gonna come out on the other end exactly what I wanted,
which is a chicken. You do seem kind of, you know, confident.

(00:45):
Stare into my belly, Chuck. That's not brainwashed, it's hypnotized. Hey,
have you ever known anybody who's brainwashed? Do you ever
known a cult member? No? But why do I have
a feeling that you have. I've met cult members before.
What you have I have in your drum circles? They
were part of the Kashi Yoga cult. Really wow, Yeah,

(01:07):
totally nice, harmless people, but they were part of a
cult and they didn't do a Heaven's Gate deal. No,
uh no, actually they do quite the opposite. They make
like sandwiches for homeless people and stuff like that. And
they don't wear nikes. No, no, they were loosely fitting
clothing and all the Heavens Gate people when that one
of the hallmarks. And they were all um, all the
males were castrated. They were basically a sexual slick as

(01:30):
a can do all down there. Yeah, have fun with that. Yeah,
but uh chuck. You know, there's kind of a hysteria
associated with cults, like you know, if you're a member
of a colt or even tossing that word around kind of.
But in the seventies, big time, remember all that, Yeah,
the Moonies, the Unification Church. Brainwashing was a big deal.

(01:50):
Jim Jones's church. I don't remember what he called it. Yeah, right,
did you know though, that um, what everybody considered brain washing.
It's just it's just rubbish. Well, what like torture? No, no, okay,
there's actually a distinction. I found out. Well there's two camps. Right. Well,

(02:10):
here's the thing. You've got actual brainwashing, which has been
empirically demonstrated to work on a person if it's carried
out in conjunction with torture, right, there's another thing called
coercive persuasion, yes, and that's basically brainwashing without without torture,
which is why everybody, you know, is that's what they

(02:32):
think that you know, the Moonies did, or Jim Jones did,
or David Koresh did. Yeah, there's usually not violence involved
in cults, to be honest. No, No, there's not a
thread of violence. Perhaps, nor is their brainwashing, or at
the very least it's never been empirically demonstrated that that
actually works. I think the willingness of the participants is
often overlooked, especially by family members. So basically what I'm

(02:55):
saying is that the whole concept of cults is like
these these uh, these brain washing machines. It's not correct
brain washing machines or brainwashing machines, same thing. Yeah, it's
good stuff, thought reformed, Josh. Yeah. But all of this
can be traced back. This whole hysteria over brainwashing can
be traced back to a British journalist by the name

(03:17):
of Edward Hunter. This extra research look at you. Well,
he was mentioned briefly in the article. Okay, well, but
he was in a fervent anti communist He wrote a
book um called I Think Brainwashing Techniques of Red China
uh and it was published in nineteen fifty three, and
he later testified in front of the McCarthy um Committee,

(03:38):
the Senate can Senate Un American Activities Committee. Yah. Um,
I don't think it's quite right, but yeah, it's close.
I think I got all the words in there. This
is not in the right order. And he basically scared
the Bejesus out of everybody, saying that the Communists have
brainwashing down to a science, will do anything. They're gonna
brainwash this hall not well know. I mean, it's not

(04:01):
like the Communists didn't try and specifically they tried um
most actively in Korea during the Korean War. Right Korean
and Chinese captors did this too. American soldiers that were POWs,
to some varying degrees of success. I think they said
that twenty one soldiers refused to come back to the

(04:22):
United States when they were set free. And there's some
a little bit of discrepancy because it's twenty one out
of twenty thou prisoners. So some people say these guys
weren't brainwashed, they just you know, coming to come back. Yeah,
maybe they you know, Doug Korean chicks or something. Yeah,
maybe so, yeah we're Korean dudes or yeah, we're wide
open here at stuff. You should know. You know, whatever

(04:43):
you want to do, as long as you're not hurting
anybody else, we're cool with that. But yeah, the the
Korean and Chinese captors of these POWs did in fact
have a systematic process of brainwashing in place, and they
did it in conjunction with tortures, so it could have
actually worked. It could have. And I I think this
article is great. Just let me go ahead and say,

(05:04):
Julia Layton has got the goods. Bro. She does. She's
a great writer. And I love it when we do
podcasts on her articles. Yeah, because they're just chock full
of good stuff. Way to go, Layton. And so when
I read this article, I thought it all made sense
to me. When I when we're gonna break it down
here in a minute of how you brainwatch someone, and
it all added up, I was like, wow, that I
could see how that would work. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Yeah,

(05:25):
so let's let's talk about it. That there was a
psychologist named Lifton, Robert J. Lifton, right, and he was
the one who started studying um returning POWs from the
Korean conflict. Um, and he basically by cobbling together their
information and their reports. Yeah. Uh, he figured out the

(05:47):
process of brainwashing. As you know, the Communists did it,
and actually it wasn't anything new. It's a twentieth century phenomenon.
It appears. Yeah, Chairman Mao Um actually about it as
far back as ninety nine and his little Red Book,
which wasn't published until nineteen sixty four. Yeah, what did
he call it? Are you ready for this? Yeah? Go ahead?

(06:09):
He called it see chang jang with with apologies to
Sauceu over in Keia who tried to teach me that pronunciation.
She took a lot of time out of her day
for that one and her candy bowl. I sat there
in eight candy the whole time. She's helping me. Yeah.
So that means thought thought struggle, yeah, which which makes

(06:30):
sense because what you're doing is you're creating a conflict
in the person. That's one way to look at it.
But you're also there's a struggle between the person who's
being brainwashed, which is called the target, right, and the
person who's doing the brainwashing, which will heretofore be referred
to as the agent, kind of creepy agent and target. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(06:52):
So should we talk about should we just go ahead
and and go over the steps of how you do it? Well,
let's talk about what brainwashing is based on. It's actually
based on real psychology, right, Okay, called social influence, yeah,
which is everywhere, it's all around, and there's three different
little zones here. Compliance, which is just do it. Yeah,
that's a good way to say it, Josh. And then

(07:14):
there's persuasion, which is do it because you feel better,
more successful, more more happy, do it because it feels good.
Do it because it feels good. And then the education method,
which is do it because it's the right thing to do, right,
which is also called the propaganda method, because if you don't,
if you don't believe what you're being taught. And we've
talked about propaganda, yeah, good stuff, it was. So basically

(07:38):
brainwashing is all of these things combine persuasion, compliance, and
education and taken to the nth degree. Right, But it's
it's generally carried out, like I said, in conjunction with
torture and um using techniques like sleep deprivation, isolation. Isolation
should be you can't brainwash someone if the the paper

(08:00):
every day, right, or if you send them out and
say all right, that's enough for now. You can just
go back home. Ye watch Jeffards go to the library
for a while. Cool your heels. Yeah, it's not gonna happen.
So you need to isolate somebody. That's the first thing.
That's the first thing that needs happened. Okay, So let's
talk about it. Basically, there's three main phases in that
that Lifton figured out, the Communists carried out. Can I

(08:21):
Sam do it? It's breaking down the self step one,
introducing the possibility of salvation part two, and rebuilding the
self part three. Yeah, and I'm not going to make
any comments about my Baptist upbringing in relation to brainwatching,
I swear, because I would not want to get listener mail.
Yeah you might just from that one, but we won't

(08:41):
go there. Um. So check. Let's talk about breaking down
the self. What's the first step. Well, it's it's basically
just a constant attack. And we're going to talk about
this in terms of just for the sake of ease
um of a military type situation, like you've got a
swetcher that you've captured. Yeah, this the one that's been
proven to actually work in you're not a military prisoner

(09:04):
of war torture. So basically that's when it's you know,
you're you're not defending your freedom, you're not doing anything good,
You're not a man, you're not a soldier. It's just
a constant verbal assault on the senses, breaking you down right,
and you're actually saying you're not what you think you are.
Like Chuck, if I wanted to brainwash you, I would
start with Chuck, you're not a hipster. You are not

(09:26):
a hipster. Chuck, I am not a hipster. G exactly.
Now we're getting started. Now. What I would also do
right now would be to isolate you. As we mentioned,
I would probably perform Filenga on you, which is what
do you think it is? I would perform Philenga on you.
It sounds like something involving beads and sticks in oils

(09:49):
and stuff. No, actually it does involve sticks bamboo canes.
It's actually beating the the soles of the feet with
bamboo canes. Hurts like you would not believe bet believe me. Um.
And actually, also this this isolation thing, one of my
friends told me um about. I guess he's found it
in like the Kubark Manual, which I've yet to see it. Um.

(10:11):
But it's called birthday party. And if you're trying to
disorient somebody or or break their their grip on reality,
one of the things you could do is, you know,
you're you're assaulting them. Verbally, you're attacking them, and then
all of a sudden in the middle, everybody comes in
wearing birthday hats with a cake, and you celebrate this
guy's birthday and everybody's hanging out talking, eating cake, you know,

(10:32):
kind of fraternizing with the with the target and um.
Then all of a sudden, everybody leaves the parties over
and then you get back to business of torturing them.
And it completely throws them off. Yeah, because they're you're
you're assaulting them. And then the next thing they know
that you're like, they're celebrating your birthday and it's not
even your birthday, so like you have no idea what's
going on any longer. What you're trying to do is

(10:53):
disorient the person. So once you start to become disoriented,
you are start you begin to lose your grip on reality, right,
And once that happens, you move in with the guilt,
telling him that what they're doing is actually very bad
and uh, their mission is bad and they're evil, and
you send that kind of thing like I would tell you, Chuck, Chuck,
you are not a hipster and you should feel poorly

(11:17):
about the state of your goateee. How long have you
worked on this? This is off the cuff, Okay. So
now I'm beginning to slip further into your the palm
of your hand, Josh, And now you are going to
move in at me with self betrayal. And that's basically
when I need to agree that I'm bad. So I'm

(11:39):
starting to lose it to the point where I'm starting
to say, yes, I am bad. So you you you
do feel your goatee is shoddy, right, and you would
force me to say that, and you may force me
to denounce my my friends and their goatees and my
family and their goateees. Right. Yeah. Once you start denouncing
things that that you hold dear, all of a sudden,

(11:59):
you're en these on the brink of crisis, which brings
us to the breaking point, right, And that's when you're
totally at their whim. Who am I where am I?
What should I do? Right? And and you're you're just
completely lost any faith that you've ever had in your gotee.
You may be sobbing uncontrollably. You've reached what we would
call a nervous breakdown. You become unhinged, and you have

(12:22):
lost your grip on reality, which, as Laton put it,
your identity is up for grabs. You're you're literally a
man without an identity. You have nothing that you attach
yourself to any longer. So now that I'm broken down, dude,
that's the breakdown of the cell. You have broken me
down to the point where I don't even know which
way is up. That then you come in with a
little good cop bad cop and you offer a little

(12:43):
bit of leniency. I might give you some water, you're
some water, I can help you out, or you're feeling
even a breaking the torture and me saying I don't
want to hurt you or something like that. Small, small
gestures just become amplified in this situation. So now you
have offered me sip of your energy, inc And Josh,
I'm that's the most kind gesture anyone's ever paid to me.

(13:04):
To give me that energy drink. I'm indebted to you
for showing mercy on me. Sure. Yeah, well, you know
that's leniency, Chuck, And um, it's the first step of
the possibility of salvation phase, right, and that leads us
into compulsion. So what I'm gonna do now, Chuck, is
uh tell you that by confessing that you were wrong

(13:26):
and wanting to be a hipster, thinking that you were
a hipster, you were wrong in liking your goatee. Um,
you can stop feeling the psychological and physical pain, right,
you can stop feeling this guilt and the shame that
I've cultivated in you. I have a razor right over here, right, yeah, yeah, right,
so which leads us to the channeling of guilt. Right. So,

(13:48):
You've got this guilt and the shame that I've created,
and you, by this point, you because you've entered the
nervous breakdown phase, you have no idea what you're really
feeling guilty or shameful about and meaning behind it, but
you feel it constantly and overwhelmingly. Right. So I'm now
going to give you that that way to get rid
of your guilt, right, you attach it to something which

(14:11):
is your old belief system, my old belief system, which
is my goatee and my hipster presence. Now I'm actually thinking,
you know what that is? Where why I'm at where
I'm at today? It was because of that goatee and
me thinking I'm a hipster, right, and in your family's
goatees and all that stuff. Everything problem, Josh, sure, now
here is a razor and Chuck, it's time for the

(14:33):
releasing of guilt. You shave your goateee, well, because you
tell me it's not it's not my fault. Essentially, It's like,
it's not you, Chuck, it's it's your belief set. Hey,
who's doing the brainwashing here? Maybe I'm doing a reverse
brainwashed twist. No you're not, okay, okay, So Chuck, um,
you're gonna denounce your goatee. You're gonna denounce your hipster

(14:56):
past and your family. You have to actually say it.
This is how you and gain control of your life again.
I hate my goatee. It's a stupid thing on my face,
and I don't know why I grew it to begin with,
because it's not it's it's not even a quarter of
a beard. I feel like an idiot for having this gotee.
Chuck is stupid music I listened to and those dumb tattoos.

(15:18):
I know. It's okay, Okay, Sorry, we've reached the end
of the possibility of salvation and now, Chuck, we've actually
entered salvation. We've entered the rebuilding of the self phase. Okay,
you are broken down, you're nothing now, and now it's
time for me to build you back up into what
I want you to be, which is a preppy. Okay, okay, okay, So, Chuck, um,

(15:39):
I want you to say, now that you've consciously abandoned
your old belief system, that you realize that this new
belief system, being a preppy is the greatest thing on
the planet. It's what you're meant to do. Well, Josh,
it is what I was meant to do, because being
a preppy is clearly the style and fashion sense that
I've always craved. Had no idea, and Chuck, because that

(16:02):
this is what you're supposed to be. You really didn't
betray anybody else right in your old belief system and
by denouncing your family, because that was wrong all along. Okay,
do you promise, I do promise, Chuck. Now Here, Chuck,
I want you to take this Argyll sweater. You know,
don't put it on. Don't put it on. I want
you to drape the arms over your shoulders and I
rub my face on it. In a minute, okay, I

(16:24):
want you to take the cuffs of the sweater and
roll them together so that now you have this sweater
over your shoulders and it won't fall off because the
sleeves are attached. Now, are you trying to make me
a preppy? Or are you trying to send me back
in time to Chuck? I'm I'm in control here, okay.
So I've been isolated for months. You don't, You're You're

(16:44):
just grateful I have an Argyle sweater for you. I
am thank you for the sweater. It warms my chest,
all right? So, Chuck um, are you consciously choosing this
new belief system prepputom? I do choose prepputom. Are you
prepared to eat an alligator? I am prepared to eat
an alligator? Do you want penny loafers more more than
you've ever wanted anything in your life with pennies in them?
We'll get you pennies later, but first, do you want

(17:05):
these penny loafers? I want the penny loafer. Shosh, Chuck,
you are reborn. You are now a preppy. I have
broken you down from a hipster and rebuilt you into
a preppy and you're better off because of it. Wow,
where did my goot go? Yeah? You look good, Chuck,
My face is all fat. No, it looks good. I mean,
we'll work on that a little bit. Sure, but we
gotta get your tan first. Nice little bit of role playing,

(17:26):
your josh. So it all makes sense to me when
you look at those steps, you break someone down and
then you offer him a grain of bread, you know,
a morsel, and then you gain their trust and then
you rebuild them. And when you look at these cults
and uh not not the prison of Ward in this case,
but when you go the cults and some of these
people that may be involved, they may be to that

(17:48):
breakdown stage you know already. Yeah, I went to Actually
I hate this. This is like if I could cut
parts of my brain out, I would cut this memory out.
What you do? I went to a weekend long New
Way Age convention and dude, it was rough. I was
walking around just like you. People will buy into anything,

(18:09):
and it wasn't that. It wasn't like I just scoffed
at their beliefs or or you know, the people who
are peddling these beliefs. I just thought it was said
that these people were walking around looking for anything to
attach themselves to, anything that they could define themselves with.
And we're completely abandoning any thought of creating their own identity, right,
they had to attach it to something else. And it's

(18:30):
it's clearly it's not just New Age people. You can
make the case that it's anybody who uses something as
a crutch, whether it's you know, church or whatever. Right. Um,
but yeah, this this one particularly stuck out in my head,
this new age convention. So um apparently and check this
is why I could never actually brainwash you. Uh. It

(18:50):
works better on some people than on others. People who
have a weak sense of identity, um, which you definitely
do not. If you have a tendency to show to
be guilty as or feel guilty, which you definitely do not.
And absolutism black and white thinking, which and self doubt
and self doubt. Yeah you've got none of those, dude.
No one could brainwash me. I know you. You get

(19:10):
a thick skull. Not not you, not anyone here watching
I definitely tend toward guilt and slash your face. How
how I just committed violence? Yeah you did, Chuck, So,
Josh can't they can't study brainwashing, clearly, they can't actually
perform this in a laboratory on someone because that would

(19:31):
be wrong. Right, But thanks to lift In, we have this,
we know how it works, and actually soldiers are still
to this day trained to yeah, how to recognize the
steps in brainwashing, which immediately takes away most of the
power of the brainwasher, and also how to detach themselves
from the situation. Yeah, I would think in meditative techniques

(19:52):
and things like that. Just me personally, if I was
in the Korean War, let's say back then, and I
had a Korean captor yelling at me and probably broken
English breaking me down, I would I don't. I mean,
I guess when there's torture involved, it's a different story.
But I would be like, dude, you're not brainwashing me
with that acts any kidding, right, you know? And I
wouldn't on the poorly conjugated verbs and things like that. Yeah,

(20:15):
well that's what one of the techniques to avoid it is.
They teach you to focus on on certain details and
things like that or details of home and to not
buy into all this stuff. Yeah, and they said people who, um,
who believe in the higher power apparently are much harder
to brainwash, which strikes me that yeah interesting. Yeah, so, um,

(20:36):
I've got another thing for you. You're ready, I'm ready.
Meant a side? No idea? Another word for brainwashing? Oh
is it interesting? And that? What's the route there? Ment
it's minty fresh aside, it's good, I guess mental mentality.
It's the breakdown of the person's identity or belief system,
which you know is lodged happily in this little camp

(20:59):
ground in your brain. And so the side part, you know,
murder brainwashing. You took a lot out of me, chuck,
did it? I'm sorry. You look like you're you're whipped.
Like you look like you're whipped like Lee Boyd malvo
Let's hear it. Well, there's just a couple of famous
incidences of brainwashing. One was Patty Hurst in the seventies

(21:20):
when she was of the famous First Family was kidnapped
by the Sibionese Liberation Army and she claimed to be
brainwashed when she was robbing banks and that you set
in her defense and she actually was convicted. She was
in seventy six. Her sentence was commuted by Carter. She
was pardoned by Jimmy Carter in seventy nine and then

(21:43):
cast by John Waters in many films. Yeah, that's right,
wasn't she. Yeah, she's in movies. I forgot about that.
Do you know who one of her greatest proponents was
that John Wayne? Oh? Yeah, And actually that's one of
the reasons why her sentence was commuted by by Carter
was because John Wayne was such a a vocal advocate
on her behalf and because of the Jonestown tragedy. After

(22:06):
that happened, people were like, oh wow, brainwashing really does exist,
although the courts have always been skeptical of it. Yeah,
my name is John Wayne. John Wayne named after John Wayne.
Did you do names? Charles W. Bryant Wayne? Uh? I
always figured you were named after Wayne Coyne. That's the
flaming lips. Yeah, No, that wouldn't have worked out. Timeline. Well,
let's talk about Lee Boyd Malvo. Yes, he famously, as

(22:28):
you remember, was a part of the the sniper sniper
shootings that happened and he was just a young kid
in uh Antigua, when he was plucked away by um
John Allen Mohammed and he was brainwashed, or at least
that's what his attorneys speculate, right, And that didn't get

(22:51):
him off either. He got life in prison without the
possibility of parole. Yeah, so as far as the courts
are concerned, it's a little dubious. It is, actually and um,
it was the whole that UH coercive persuasion I was
talking about earlier, the idea that Brainwashington work without violence
or the threat of violence. Um, that all kind of
went away in nine UH in a case called usb Fishman.

(23:13):
Let's here, there was a guy who was being convicted
of mail fraud and he entered UH an insanity plea
saying that he had been brainwashed by the Church of
Scientology and it didn't work. And that one was pretty
much the end of the idea of coercive persuasion. Interesting,
we're gonna get people asking us now to do one
on Scientology. I guarantee I'm not doing it. Heck now, Nope,

(23:36):
we gotta wait for anonymous to break them down a
little more before we step in Travolta and the cruise
will show up at our door with baseball bats, but
there's no telling what would happen to us. I don't
want to do that. All right, Well that's it. That's
actually probably the last time we'll ever mention scientology too. Yes, um,
let's uh, let's do listener mail and pretend we never

(23:56):
did this. Okay, Josh, I'm gonna call these listener males. Okay.
This first one is from Ben Boland's buddy, our our
friend here, Ben that works here, who is the one
that turned us onto the Esperanto deal. Apparently Tim, his
friend turned him onto Esperanto. Yeah, and Tim says, thanks

(24:19):
for your mentioning event Esperanto. I was happy you mentioned
learning as well. He says he's a longtime friend of
Ben and he introduced him to it, although I'm sure
he would have run across it eventually in his own explorations.
I love that Ben does like exploring. He does, and
he he plugged our podcast. We're gonna plug right back.
He has a website. He's actually the vice press of

(24:40):
Esperanto Usa, which I thought was pretty cool. So the
name of his website is Esperanto dash Usa dot org
and uh go check it out. I think it's kind
of cool. Yeah, I think it's cool too, Ben said.
I talked to Ben this morning. He said that he
can read Esperanto but can't really speak it really, so
I was like, that's a disappointment and such a cool guy,

(25:01):
all right, And this next one is from Rick and
Woodstock And I don't know if this is what stock
New Yorker Georgia, let's go with New York. I got
the impression Georgia. Really, what do I know? So he's
got an innovation to tag onto our three innovations I
thought was pretty cool. DNA specific killer virus. So basically

(25:22):
he says, get our boys in the Pentagon to hook
up with the fellows from the c d C. You
engineer a virus which is highly contagious, airborne and uh
bioengineered to only target one person on Earth, so he
the unluckiest person on it. Yeah, well, he he said,
Osama bin Laden, like, if we get some of his DNA,

(25:43):
make a virus that would only kill him, release it
to the masses in the Middle East, It'll be contagious,
it'll get around to him eventually and kill only him.
I don't generally advocate killing, but that is a fascinating concept. Interesting.
He's like, you know, what if you could have taken
out Hitler with no bloodshed essentially, or or a Ben Lawton.
So I thought it was kind of interesting. He said
that it still has one or two kinks, but so

(26:05):
does teleportation. So touche to you, Rick, one or two
maybe a bit glib. Yeah. I also want to give
a shout out about the Innovations podcast. Dylan who emailed
us and I engaged in a very um spirited debate
over whether or not teleportation was a good thing. Right now,
it was good. It was very intelligent, really good point debate.
And I was, yeah, now, you guys, it was good.

(26:30):
That was a very well thought I'll answer. So, yeah,
I smacked him down pretty hard. No, that was a
good spirit, that was It was nice. Agreed. So if
you want to engage in a spirited debate with Chuck
or me, probably not gonna happen. Actually, um. You can
send us a come on to Stuff podcast at how
stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands

(26:58):
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