Can't unbrainwash most people

Brainwashing is unusual in that it seems that one can only be brainwashed once. It is much harder to unbrainwash a person once they have been conditioned to accept an answer than it was for them to get that answer.

There is a disturbing Pavlovian style experiment from the early 20th century. A pigeon is taught that if it pecks a light it gets food. Once the bird has been conditioned a certain number of times, if the reinforcement stops (the food stops coming) the bird will continue to peck the light forever until it is dead.

That's sad, but it makes a point. The bird finds it easy to learn, but very hard to unlearn. And people are like that too.

One of the ways to brainwash a person is to give their ego a reward for the proper belief, that is withheld for a long time when the improper belief is stated. This is perfectly Pavlovian, only the ego is fed rather than the stomach.

So now one ego-reinforcement is to tell a person or imply that the knowledge they are to repeat is rare, for very special people. It is implied that most people can't handle this rare 'secret' or 'esoteric' knowledge, but they can. The person will accept this and not even check to see if it is true. It usually isn't. This strongly strokes their ego. Once they are used to this feeling, by repeating the belief, they come to be like the bird. They will repeat it till they are dead.

So for an example we take the view that JFK was not killed by Oswald alone, but rather by a larger conspiracy. In reality a majority of people hold this bogus opinion. But for some reason people will not check this out and realize they do not actually have a rare 'esoteric' view. Far from being the rare view of a privileged few, it is common among the poorly informed.

Critical thinking is the ability to criticize and question seriously one's own opinions. Some people have almost no critical thinking at all. They are like the bird that can learn, but not unlearn if things change, or new information arises. They learn once, and that's the end of it. That is the meaning of having no critical thought.

There is no better example of non-critical thinking than those that hear a voice in their head and believe the voice that it is 'so and so' speaking. In every case the voice claims to be someone that the listener feels flattered to be getting messages from. This is the ego reinforcement.

One thing that is universal to all people who channel voices is that they accept who the voice tells them it is, and never seeks any proof. They have zero critical thinking. They cannot correct a view they have. They have no means at all to ever determine that they are being mislead. They believe the voice and that's the end of it.

I used to have a downstairs neighbor in an apartment building. She began hearing a voice. Soon she had an online following. They all pitched in and she wrote a book that the group that grew up around her had founded self-published. The spirit guide is what the voice called itself, and this made it into the title.

I wish to quote a line from the Trial of Joan of Arc. No one who ever read the notes form the Trial of Joan of Arc could ever think Joan was a saint. In fact it was only in the 20th century (500 years after the creepy events) that she was canonized as a saint, a politically motivated conversion by the French Church.

Joan claimed to hear three voices, two female and one male. These she said were Saint Margaret, Saint Catherine, and the Archangel Michael. Here is Joan's reply to queries about about how she knew these were indeed the characters the voices said they were. This is directly from the trial:

Asked how she knew they were these two saints, and how she knew one from the other, she answered she knew well who they were, and easily distinguished one from the other.

Asked how she knew one from the other, she answered she knew them by the greeting they gave her. She said further that a good seven years have passed since they undertook to guide her. She said also she knows the saints because they tell her their names. (source)

And here is a summation of her reasoning.

"This woman recognizes and is certain that he who visits her is St. Michael: she is certain of this because of the good counsel, consolation, and wise doctrine which the said St. Michael brings her; and also because he names himself, saying that he is Michael. And similarly she recognizes and distinguishes from one another, St. Catherine and St. Margaret, because they name themselves and greet her. This is why she believes that the St. Michael who visits her is St. Michael himself, and that his acts and words are good and true, as firmly as she believes that Our Lord Jesus Christ suffered death to redeem us." (source)

Anyone who knows the full story of Joan of Arc knows that the voices lied to her, instructing her that if she obeyed them and continued to speak boldly in court about them, she would be acquitted and go free. When she was found guilty she had a genuine crisis, for she saw she had been betrayed. She sought to recant her statements, but by the time they returned to her with papers she had come to the decision that her life was so ruined at that point that she preferred death.

That is a fact and you can look it up and take it to the bank.

The point of this story is that Joan of Arc showed total lack of critical thinking. Her reason for believing she was talking to two saints and an archangel is that they said that is who they were. Obviously she had no way to compare their voices with who they said they were. It is simply that they told her this, it stroked her ego, so she believed it, and that was the end of it. She (like the bird in the Pavlovian experiment) pecked herself to death rather than give up the belief -- even after the voices had been shown to have betrayed her and not be honest or good like they lead her to believe. She chose her ego over life itself in the end.

Meher Baba hardly spent more energy opposing a tired old doctrine than he did opposing the doctrine of hearing a perfect master through voices. I have listed so many places where Baba warned against this throughout this blog, but I have convinced no one.

Some have even said I think Baba is dead -- I suppose meaning a materialist death. This is not what I have said anywhere. Baba is certainly dead in the common manner of speech. But no soul ever really dies, Baba teaches. But that is not to say that Baba is contacting anyone from beyond the grave. That is a conception that belongs more to Voodoo than to Baba.

Those who believe that Meher Baba is speaking to them will be like the bird. They will never give it up now they have gotten a reward. It flatters them to think this. It reinforces their ego. Brain washing is odd. It only happens once.

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The point of this discussion is of course all the many, many self-declared Baba followers who say they hear Baba talking to them from the other side, often seeing him, and claiming he is in a subtle body or some so-called 'fourth body.' Many also report seeing him. Absolutely none of these people show any sign of using critical thinking. It has to be Baba, and that's the end of it.

Their attitude reminds me of the words of Joan of Arc.

Asked what sign she gives that this revelation comes from God, and that it is St. Catherine and St. Margaret who speak to her, she answered: "I have told you often enough that it is St. Catherine and St. Margaret; believe me if you will."

So where did all this 'channeling' the dead come from? It began in the late 18th century and gained huge international attention in the 19th century, and came to be called the spiritualist movement. The word 'spiritualist' refers to spirits of the dead, not anything spiritual in any theological sense.

Now the first to popularize spiritualism was Emanuel Swedenborg, who became obsessed with listening to spirits talking to him, and wrote much about metaphysics in terms of these experiences. This so infuriated the German philosopher Immanuel Kant that it inspired him to write his Critique of Pure Reason, that had a huge influence over philosophy in Europe. Its main point was the show why such 'metaphysics' as Swedenborg wrote was not truly rational.

Anyway, Swedenborg is often called the father of spiritualism, and sometimes the father of the New Age. There is even a Swedenborgian Church, also known as the Church of the New Jerusalem.

But for all his credentials, one should seriously consider what Swedenborg himself once said about listening to these voices. The following is from the Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs by John Ankerberg and John Weldon, 1996.

Where who Another example is the eighteenth-century medium Emanuel Swedenborg. He spent an entire lifetime associating with spirits. In the Western world perhaps no one had more experience with the spirit world than he did. Yet Swedenborg warned that the spirits were so cunning and deceitful that it was almost impossible to determine their true nature. As an occult authority, Swedenborg told people that demonic spirits are gifted actors who mutiner imitate the dead. Thus, in a frightening way, Swedenborg still speaks to us today by saying: “When spirits begin to speak with a man, he ought to beware that he believes nothing whatever from them; for they say almost anything. Things are fabricated by them, and they lie. . . . They would tell so many lies and indeed with solemn affirmation that a man would be astonished... . If a man listens and believes they press on, and deceive, and seduce in [many] ways. . . . Let men beware therefore [and not believe them].”

Unfortunately, despite all his cautions, Swedenborg himself fell prey to deceiving spirits by thinking that God had given him special permission to contact the spirit world. Swedenborg ignored the Bible’s warning against all forms of spirit contact (Deuteronomy 18:9-12). The reason Swedenborg ignored the Bible was because he believed that “good” spirits had taught him the truth. Yet the “Church of the New Jerusalem” Swedenborg founded as a result of these “good” spirits’ teachings has always promoted spiritistic revelation that ranks among the most unbiblical material ever printed. (source)

But guess what. None of this will have any effect on those who have drunk the Kool-Aid and claim to be in contact with Baba. These people are like drug addicts.

Here are some common traits that people who think they are in communication with Baba share.

1. They tend to be under a false impression that their communication is rare, and you can't talk about it. The fact is that it is extremely common. When I moved to Myrtle Beach (one of a few Baba follower hubs in the U.S.) I was horrified to hear people confiding in me they hear (and often see) Baba over and over -- and each believing it wasn't happening to others.

2. They tend to feel this is a sign they are special, or gifted. This is the depressing part. For they do not realize what dull people have heard voices. Specialness appears to be the allure, besides the inane messages they get, and why they dwell on it and would never even consider ceasing their involvement with it.

3. They all find it terribly important to be believed. Others believing they have this connection, and respecting them for it, is extremely important to them. This is not something they can 'just let go' or dismiss.

4. Many hint they this shows they are on or near some inner planes Baba talked about.

5. These people show no sign of doubt. They have a kind of certainty that is usually reserved for the insane, and see this as evidence they are right. Everything is evidence this is real. That it is not real is not something that can even be contemplated.

6. In justifying this rationally, they deny Baba's words, or claim some bizarre interpretation of his words. They have lots of theories, some involving time travel. In this sense they are especially like drug addicts. Have you ever talked to a pot addict about pot? "Who do you think made pot?" The implication is God, and ignores that God also made poison ivy and syphilis. There is an extreme dependency. The critical thinking is gone on this matter.

7. Some of these people seek followers.

8. Such people are prone to magical thinking in other regards.

9. Like drug addicts they lack incite. They lack any incite into the fact that what they are doing could be harmful, or that the voices they are seeing or visions they are having could be anything other than what the voice/ apparition says it is.

10. And like drug addicts they tend to want to recruit others to do the same. To develop their relationship with Baba in this way -- or Ra or The Spirit Guide or whatever it may be.

Do people know that Moses even made a commandment against this behavior? Yes they had spirit-hearing claimants back then too.

There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you. (Deuteronomy 18:10-13)

Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 19:31)

And this is from the New Testament.

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons. (1 Timothy 4:1)

Who are you listening to? It's not Baba. It's not.