Summary of Joost A.M. Meerloo's The Rape Of The Mind

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview: #1 The human mind is susceptible to political coercion. In 1933, the German Reichstag building was burned to the ground, and the Nazis arrested a Dutchman, Marinus Van der Lubbe, and accused him of the crime. Van der Lubbe was known by Dutch psychiatrists to be mentally unstable.

#2 The trial of van der Lubbe showed the world the danger of systematized mental coercion in politics. The world began to realize that the Bolsheviks had turned their old comrades into puppets, and that they were being systematically changed into sheep.

#3 During the Second World War, the Nazis forced confessions out of prisoners, and those who were resistant or did not comply were subject to further torture. We learned from this experience, and decided that it was better not to be in touch with one another, in order to avoid being betrayed.

#4 The Nazis used a variety of psychological strategies to break their prisoners, from torture to playing the coward, to confessing too much. I had to flee Holland after a policeman warned me that my name had been mentioned in an interrogation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Feb 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669347897

IRB Media

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Insights on Joost A.M. Meerloo's The Rape of the Mind

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 17

Insights from Chapter 18

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The human mind is susceptible to political coercion. In 1933, the German Reichstag building was burned to the ground, and the Nazis arrested a Dutchman, Marinus Van der Lubbe, and accused him of the crime. Van der Lubbe was known by Dutch psychiatrists to be mentally unstable.

#2

The trial of van der Lubbe showed the world the danger of systematized mental coercion in politics. The world began to realize that the Bolsheviks had turned their old comrades into puppets, and that they were being systematically changed into sheep.

#3

During the Second World War, the Nazis forced confessions out of prisoners, and those who were resistant or did not comply were subject to further torture. We learned from this experience, and decided that it was better not to be in touch with one another, in order to avoid being betrayed.

#4

The Nazis used a variety of psychological strategies to break their prisoners, from torture to playing the coward, to confessing too much. I had to flee Holland after a policeman warned me that my name had been mentioned in an interrogation.

#5

The history of torture is long and tragic, dating back to the medieval period. However, modern techniques of torture are not new. They have been used by tyrants and dictators for centuries to extort confessions for political propaganda purposes.

#6

The witch trials were intended not only to torture the witches, but also to torture the bystanders, who, though unconsciously, identified themselves with the victims.

#7

The brainwashing technique, known as menticide, is an elaborate ritual of systematic indoctrination, conversion, and self-accusation used to change non-Communists into submissive followers of the party.

#8

The brainwashee is subject to the unsteadiness of his own mind, which can produce different answers to repeated questions. He is also subject to the atrocities he suffers from without, as well as the atrocities he suffers from within.

#9

The third and final stage of interrogation is when the accused is trained to bear false witness against himself and others. He doesn’t have to convince himself any more through autohypnosis; he only speaks his master’s voice.

#10

The Schwable case is similar to the Mindszenty story in that it involves the influence of hypnosis on a military officer who is taken prisoner by the enemy. However, in the Schwable case, the colonel was subject to a form of treatment very different from what he had expected.

#11