To give an example: A man wakes up in front of the back wall of a dark cell. The space between him and the open door of the cell is densely covered with a web of barbed wire. Right beside him is a voice recorder. Turning it on, he hears a recorded voice, calling him by his name and telling him that he recently committed suicide, and that it was now the time to know whether he really wanted to die that day or was just trying to attract some attention. The voice also tells him that if he really wants to die, all he needs to do is to stay there and wait, but if he wants to live, he has to go through the web of barbed wires. Moreover, he has to do that within two hours, because the door of the dungeon is on a timer.
John claims that he never murdered anyone, and that his ‘tests’ always had the chance to survive. His main point is that those who do not value the precious gift of life and do not do what is necessary to live it, do not deserve it. This is why he chooses heedless, unfocused, lost, adrift, and unappreciative souls. He designs the game, leaves the instructions in a voice recorder; and when his voice in the recorder finally says, “Let the game begin!”, the ‘test’ is on her own.
This game which John Kramer truly enjoys playing is almost identical to the one that God created: life. Most people would say no to that, but the similarity is obvious.
We are born to a universe, about which we know next to nothing. We do not know why it exists. We do not know how it exists. Our limited intelligence and sensory perception are inadequate to explain all this. However, just like John’s voice recorder, the messengers and scriptures of God tell the tests about the rules of the game, and what they should do in order to win. Those who are successful in playing John’s games are rewarded with life. Correspondingly, those who are successful in playing God’s game are rewarded with an eternal happy one. Both games involve the use of the mind, both have to do with rational decision making, and both have timers.
There is one big difference though. All of those who wake up in a game of John’s, take it seriously – regardless of whether they succeed or not. On the other hand, many of those who wake up to this world prefer just to have as much fun as possible before their times are up, and do not really wonder what the hell they are looking for here. There are also many others who try to do their best in playing this game the way God advises, however, they seem to somehow have turned off their faculty to question and inquire. But then again, one does not have to question or inquire anything in order to win John’s game. So that attitude may probably work for God’s game as well.

Government officials who consider themselves to be doing highly important jobs may very well be unaware of the workings of the more complex system that they are a part of. The movie Lord of War portrays a good example of that. At the end of the movie, Jack Valentine (Ethan Hawk), the Interpol agent, who arrests Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage) is surprised to hear him say that he would be released shortly. Therefore he tells him that he is not fully aware of the seriousness of his situation, and that he is living in a dream world! In a short while, things turn out exactly the way Yuri Orlov predicted, and Agent Valentine realizes who, in fact, has been living in a dream world the whole time. At this point, one has to remember an earlier scene, in which Agent Valentine asks Orlov, “Do you know why I do what I do?” and makee a cocky explanation.

Act II

Once upon a time, I was driving on I-15 at San Bernardino county, California. They have a cool radio station there at 96.7. It was shortly after 9/11, and the U.S. was about to attack Afghanistan. The two hosts of the morning show were talking about how these guys in Afghanistan were just intrinsically wrong since they were forcing men who naturally lacked a beard to put on fake ones. One of the hosts stated that a lot of things might be attributed to cultural differences, but the other immediately added that we should also ask ‘who’ created the culture. This last comment of his seemed to be a very rational one, and I have, since then, used that as a parameter (among others) when I tried to understand a particular culture. I came to agree that it was the Afghans who created such a culture which was nowhere else to be seen in the Islamic world. After when I watched the movie ‘Lord of War,’ I applied the same process to the current state of the world. The world as it is today is a battle zone for many people around the world, and the countries mentioned at the beginning of the movie ‘Lord of War’ very much intend to keep it that way – since warlords cannot exist without wars.
I wonder which is worse. A culture which forces men who lack a natural beard to put on fake one; or one that applies official and unofficial policies which will lead to more money – and brutal deaths of innocent people around the world?

Act III

Some people start sentences with phrases like ‘When we built this country,…’, when, in fact, they did not build anything. Then what does that ‘we’ imply? Most probably, they mean their ancestors, not themselves – if the ancestors in question are really theirs and not their neighbors’, of course.
It was obviously all there long before they were born, but that doesn’t stop them from imagining their heads in the clouds. Just like Agent Valentine, they are very much fond of associating themselves with ‘the good’, which is everything every single country/religion/faction in the world claims to stand for. But everybody needs to feel important – even in a dream world.
I wonder what they would have built if they were born in, for example, Liberia.

Act IV

We just pretend. We shed a tear when we see innocent people being killed, as was the case when a woman and her child were beaten to death in the movie ‘Lord of War’. Since very few people would consider themselves evil, we just pretend to be good. Thanks to that very important teardrop or two, as well as the $20 bills that we may happen to donate from time to time, we can sleep peacefully at night considering ourselves noble.
Human nature is doomed with ignorance of the pains of others we hardly have any relationship with.

Status quo is a term used to refer to the ‘existing state of affairs’. Since most people do not question the way things get going, repetitive imposition of mainstream values shape the borders of a status quo mindset. By nature, the majority of human beings have a strong tendency to keep things the way they are. They resist change. This makes it easier for all political systems to push citizens inside a mainstream. Since this has to be a specific mainstream that serves the best advantage of the controllers of the political system, citizens are subjected to mental programming with the use of mind control techniques.

It is important for rulers of masses to maintain the status quo, because they derive their power from it. Because, a society composed of individuals who are exactly like one another will act and react accordingly and predictably. This can be made possible by government-controlled education. Therefore, rulers of the masses regard education as an essential political tool. Since human beings are born with an unwashed brain, and have not yet been subject to lies based on distorted historical, traditional, institutional or religious facts, education serves the purpose of mental programming in order to impose the nationalist indoctrination.

Nationalist Indoctrination

“Education of the young is used to condition them to what comes later, thereby eliminating the difference between propaganda and education. Propaganda cannot work effectively without education. The mind is conditioned with vast amounts of information posing as ‘facts’ and ‘knowledge’ dispensed for ulterior motives… With propaganda, distraction focuses attention on information that is false. Repetition of the false information imbeds it in your subconscious mind so that your acceptance of its truth and accuracy becomes a conditioned response, circumventing analysis. Therefore, you accept this information as true without thinking about it. This is especially true in school where there is pressure to accept what is presented as true because that is what is expected from you.”¹
Nationalist indoctrination uses various kinds of mind control techniques. As in any other kind of manipulation, distraction is the starting point. This is where the concept of state comes in. Rulers cannot directly manipulate the masses. The concept of state is used as the intermediary of distraction between the rulers and people. lMoreover, “people are led to believe something that is not true when that information is presented by an accepted authority.”². Rulers make use of emotional symbols (most of which trigger subconscious perception) in order to control actions and sentiments. Epic songs and poems, monuments, national anthems, official uniforms and national anniversaries are just a couple of rituals of statism.
History is also a lucrative source to pump national enthusiasm. Especially in distressing periods, glorifications of distorted and exaggerated past achievements (or just plain myths and legends) are used to manipulate the individuals through the previously embedded national sentiments.

In many cases, the state’s sacred entity is impersonated in characters called leaders. With the help of a heroification process, these leaders who have the main role in national myths, are presented as super humans.

Organized Religion and Cults

Using mind control techniques in order to better control the masses is not merely limited to those who govern. There are also many religious, secular and business groups which use various mind control techniques. Organized religion, however, possesses the only comparable power to that of those who govern.

Religion, at its core, intends to serve the good. It brings a call to people to join the righteous path. It has the intention to shape the human being in a way that will make a better person. To achieve this, it sets forth various rules and methods. But by nature, people think and act in different ways from each other. Moreover, they perceive the same things in so many different ways. Therefore, as a religion ages, it always splits into more factions and sects.

When the passage of time is involved; culture, politics and other corruptive influences distort the essence of religion – whether on purpose or not. When these are combined with imperfect decision making by human beings, wisdom of ages may end up a bunch of nonfunctional rules and restrictions that do not make much reasonable sense. This is when religion really becomes organized religion.

New generations who are born to this distorted belief system either blindly follow it or refuse to accept most parts of it – even though they have faith in the concept of a supreme being. This may foster social polarization between believers and non-believers – as well as polarization among sects. Because, when a religion is equated (or reduced) to rules and restrictions, it loses its edge, and the door to bigotry opens. These rules, restrictions and rituals become the religion itself; and the blind followers of this watered-down faith takes things to a new level. Because, this is when a cult mentality that embraces conformity is born.

Rulers of the cult (and also those who wish to manipulate the cult) embrace this conformity. Because, conformity makes it a lot easier to control (and in some cases manipulate) the members – since members composed of individuals who are exactly like one another will act and react accordingly and predictably. On the contrary, it is very hard to control a fully independent and liberated individual.

Another typical characteristic of religious (or non-religious) cults is to discourage individualism and autonomy. Cult members are provided with the few and same source(s) of information, while alternate readings or other inputs are discouraged. Members believe in almost exactly the same things, which is, most of the time, what they are told or taught to believe. In the end, members of such cults or sects come to think, look, act and dress more or less the same as one another, and reach a point where they tend to protect what they believe is true, and unconsciously filter out information they don’t want to receive.

Such a strong emphasis on conformity naturally involves the rejection of diversity, and thus it becomes pretty usual to treat deviant members with suspicion. Due to similar concerns, it is difficult for cults to recruit scientists, philosophers and artists, since they hardly fit in a certain mainstream. They tend to question the authority that prevails, as well as the underlying principles that are intended to not be discussed widely and openly.

After Indoctrination

Once programmed, both educated and uneducated masses become slaves to their own status quo mindsets.They ‘choose’ to believe in the dominant and populist ideas which are socially and officially approved, and they view all the changes to the status quo skeptically.

Slaves to the status quo mindset tend to label and categorize those who do not fit in the mainstream. That’s because they perceive and judge others with the paradigms and norms injected in their brains. A great deal of prejudice and stereotyping is involved in their understanding.

This is the typical transformation of individuals, who are now called citizens, from human beings to collective (or national) beings. The saddest part of all is that the dominant and populist idea exists in different forms. The indoctrination produces rightists, leftists, greens, yellows and so on. Citizens who choose one of these labels as their political identities start to believe that they are different from others in the political arena.