The most recommended books about brainwashing

An evil mastermind has taken control of the city, using huge contraptions to envelope it in hallucinations that have plunged its inhabitants into a land without reason. Just what powers Doctor Hoffman’s generators are revealed at the end and I always think about it. I read this years ago and it has always stuck with me. Written in 1972, Carter’s book is a warped premonition of today’s fractured mind. Rereading it has been difficult, I’m reminded once again of Maryanne Wolf’s work—how much easier it was for me to deep-read weird books like this when I was younger, before my life became a battle against distraction. Now, I feel like we must all strive to maintain sovereignty over our own attention.

Cult Deception is chilling and disturbing.

As I read this book, I thought about how so many people can be ensnared into a cult-like following or organization. Extreme conformity, ignoring your gut feelings, and being enamored by a charismatic person paves the way for cults.

The author used several stories and examples to back up her claims and described the characteristics of cults. This book shows how powerful and deceiving cults can be. It can happen to almost anyone, and cultish organizations are found in many places.

I first read this book when I was 10 years old, and from then on I was utterly devoted to the genre of fantasy series.

With its mixture of childlike wonder and rather advanced concepts, this first book in the extensive Guardians of Ga’Hoole series succeeds in making the reader think while remaining an entertaining piece of literature. And the choice of owls as the main characters proves a worthwhile gamble on the part of the author that makes the series informative as well as unique.

Mind control has long been a fascinating topic for me, and this book fits right in, exploring how a stolen top-secret mind control phrase threatens to ignite global conflict. Because this book was written by ex-intelligence, its nuances of the underbelly of the CIA are written in captivating detail.

I read this book every chance I could and finished it in a week. I recently discovered Chase Hughes wrote a sequel to this book, entitled The Belgrade Archer. I am excited to read it.

This is an epic adventure story with a strong environmental theme, set in an alternative world. A harsh government, the Automators, trains citizens to think of the whole natural world – animals, plants, everything – as theirs to use and exploit. Set against them is a group of specially gifted people, the Listeners, who can tune in to animal minds and share their thoughts. But this ability is a dangerous one, as anyone found to be a Listener can be imprisoned and brainwashed. Harlon, Ash, Zeno, and their mother are part of a resistance group called Green Thorn, which tunes into an unseen network that connects all living things. This is an exciting story that’s also moving and poetic – and the story will continue!

I reread Fire regularly because I love the heroine, Fire, and her conundrum: how can she love herself when her beauty is so destructive, when it inspires such terrible behavior in the people around her? We think of beauty as an asset, sure that we would be happier, more confident, more liked if we were more beautiful, and Cashore explores the limits of beauty in this novel. She also digs deep into a very problematic father/daughter relationship as Fire deals with the lessons her father, Cansrel, taught her about how to use her beauty for power, and decides to forge her own path. Like so many of these hard family relationships, Fire must reconcile her love for her father and her hatred of what he’s become. 

This book was written in the mid-70s and “set in a dystopian America in the near future.” Fortunately, our present isn’t quite like this. Five 16-year-old orphans awaken to find themselves in a building with no ceiling, walls, or floor—only endless flights of stairs in every direction. It’s a story about human nature and the human condition, as well as a cautionary tale about government control. Supposedly written for young readers (what we’d consider “middle grade” today), I believe it’s better suited for teens and adults.

Written during the Third Reich itself, this is the hard-hitting book that told the world just how heinous Nazi education policy was – although it was only heeded by a prescient few at the time. Anyone who is worried about how easily schooling can become subject to ideology should definitely read this book!

For a theoretical and psychological understanding of the workings of cults, I would strongly recommend the work of Robert Jay Lifton, in particular, his most recent book Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealoutry, which brings together many of his writings over the years on the subject of cults and what he called “totalizing” groups, ones which demand absolute commitment.

Lifton, who wrote about “Nazi Doctors," the Chinese cultural revolution, and the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan, which carried out a deadly sarin attack on a Tokyo subway in 1987, grasped that the mechanism of belief and allegiance that bind both political and religious movements are essentially the same.

Lifton worked out eight criteria for thought control that groups commonly used that went from “Milieu Control,” (isolating members and control the information they are exposed to) and “Demand for Purity” (in which the good… show more.

Harvard historian of science professor Lemov’s account of the history of behavioral science includes a chapter analyzing the work of three of the central figures in MKUltra, the CIA’s decade-long program of classified research into “mind control.”

Excellent on the scientific context out of which that research arose.