Brainwashing
In recent decades many events have occurred which have brought attention to the allegations of brainwashing. For example, the Chinese communists, the huge involvement of young American people in religious cults, the death of David Koresh and his followers, the Branch Davidians, in Waco, Texas. The influence of Jim Jones over the members of the Peoples Temple in Guyana; who at his instructions killed their children and themselves. It was said that the Peoples Temple was a cult, and that it had brainwashed its members. But what is brainwashing? This idea has been around at least since the Korean War. Seemingly, the Red Chinese in the Korean War had brainwashed American pilots to make Communists out of them. Brainwashing is most likely the explanation to these incidents, or does brainwashing even exist? Brainwashing is a method of influencing people to change their beliefs and accept as true what they previously has considered false. The term was first used to refer to methods practiced by the Chinese Communist. Brainwashing described "thought reform" programs they developed after taking control of China in 1949. During the Korean War, the Chinese and North Koreans used similar techniques to convert America
Despite all of the allegations of brainwashing, there are those who say that brainwashing does not exist and is not a useful concept. Reverend John Bodycomb of the Uniting Church in Melbourne, Australia, rejects the idea of brainwashing with the comment: "It is no more possible to wash someone's brains that it is possible to make him bleed with a cutting remark." Some investigations and studies have been done and the belief systems about cult brainwashing have found to be lacking in reliability. These studies show that brainwashing experiments have all been unsuccessful. The CIA used drugs and electroshock during their investigations into mind control. Their experiments were failures. The brainwashing attempts by Communist military organizations during the Korean War also supposedly failed. They were forced to use torture to increase their mind control techniques and were able to have success in only a few cases. The question that stands out is how did uneducated cult leaders succeed when highly trained experts had failed earlier. They also wonder how cults can brainwash recruits in a week, while professionals failed after years of trying. One good indicator of the non-existence of mind control techniques is the ineffectiveness of cult recruitment programs. Eileen Barker says "out of 1000 people persuaded by the Moonies [Unification Church] to attend one of their overnight programs in 1979, 90% had no further involvement. Only 8% joined for more than one week..." Another indicator is the high turnover rate of members. Eileen Barker also mentions "that there is a 50% attrition rate during the members' first two years." The opinions of former cult members wh
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Approximate Word count = 1131
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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