Free Your Mind

1. Recognize Persuasion is Everywhere

Acknowledge that all forms of communication are designed to persuade you in some way.

Constant bombardment. We are manipulated dozens of times before we even leave the house, from our phones to our cereal boxes. Persuasion and propaganda are as old as humanity itself, and are integral to human interaction. From wishing a neighbor a nice day to educating children, influence is constant.

The Illusion of Non-Manipulation. The delusion we need to dispel is that there is such a thing as non-manipulative influence. We are all mini-propagandists, crafting and publicizing edited versions of ourselves online to influence how people see us and treat us. Modern technology encourages artful choreography above truth.

Resisting Influence. The distinction is in the intent: we wish to influence you to resist influence. This book argues that we live in an information battlefield. The use of martial language is a technique designed to influence, frighten and encourage compliance, but we don’t use the term ‘battlefield’ lightly.

2. Avoid Engagement to Resist Influence

The best thing is not to engage – not even to argue with them – but to instead totally switch off.

The Slippery Slope. The road to brainwashing is a slippery slope that starts with but a single nudge. To keep your psychological integrity, you mustn’t cede any ground to the brainwashers. Give them an inch, and they’ll take a mile. Even interacting with them in the first place allows them to set the rules of engagement and puts you on the back foot.

Avoidant Resistance. There are two methods for resisting persuasion. The first is active resistance: deliberately challenging the information and its source. The issue with active resistance is that we are not hardwired to be so cynical. The ‘truth bias’ refers to our tendency to believe people tell the truth more often than they really do, for example.

Total Avoidance. Like dogs, people will not break down and give in to brainwashing if they simply refuse to engage with it in the first place. For example, prisoners of war can survive interrogations if they refuse to cooperate with their captors or answer any questions at all, and criminal suspects would be less likely to be convicted if they simply refused all questions except those answered in writing via their lawyer.

3. Inoculate Yourself Against Manipulation

Inoculate yourself against brainwashing by educating yourself on common tactics, putting your guard up and exposing yourself to nudges in small doses.

Learning from Experience. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Small inoculations can help you recognize, and avoid, manipulation techniques in real life. The social psychologist Solomon Asch once said, ‘The greater man’s ignorance of the principles of his social surroundings, the more subject is he to their control; and the greater his knowledge of their operations and of their necessary consequences, the freer he can become with regard to them.’

The Persuasion Knowledge Model. People learn about persuasion tactics, use this knowledge to spot when someone is trying to influence them, and deploy psychological countermeasures accordingly. For example, if you were to shop for a new car, and notice that the salesman is pushing you to buy the car today or lose out on a discount, you might recognize this as a sales technique, become more suspicious and decide to shop elsewhere.

Common Manipulation Techniques. Robert Cialdini’s book Influence is, fittingly, one of the most influential frameworks when it comes to changing someone’s behavior. Cialdini originally outlined six nudges: social proof, scarcity, liking, reciprocity, commitment and consistency, and authority.

4. Balance Intellect with Intuition

Intellectualism is not necessarily a defence against brainwashing. In fact, it can be a weakness.

The Intellectual Trap. Many extremely intelligent people can believe things that are simply unbelievable to the majority. Researchers have even coined a phenomenon called ‘Nobel Disease’, referring to the tendency for some Nobel Prize winners to embrace unconventional beliefs. It can be perilous to afford geniuses too much power without checks and balances.

Motivated Reasoning. The rational brain does: it rationalises. The psychological consensus these days is that the emotional brain is the decision-making Oval Office, while the conscious brain is more like the Press Office, coming up with explanations after the fact. This is what’s known as ‘motivated reasoning’, where intellect is used to produce logic that satisfies an emotional motivation.

Trust Your Gut. Former FBI hostage negotiator Gary Noesner described how people’s gut feeling in the teeth of a crisis can serve them best. ‘It made me realize how many times that fight or flight radar is ignored, how critical it is, and how we should learn to listen to it,’ he says. ‘The human mind has this incredible unconscious way of telling us when things are not going well or the relationship is sour and you have to realize that. Take it head on. Listen to your gut.’

5. Be Conscious of Sensory Manipulation

You make sense of the world through your senses. Would-be manipulators will use yours to influence you, by drawing you in, seducing you, and moulding the thoughts and emotions at the front of your mind.

Sensory Overload. Our senses – sight, sound, touch, taste, smell – help us to create an objective perception of reality. They help us to make sense of the world. They influence our feelings about ourselves, other people, our environment and our behavior. That means our senses can be used by others to attract us, influence us and extract more money from us.

The Power of Sound. The impact of sound on the mind has been written about for thousands of years. Plato wrote in Laws that music is a useful instrument for education ‘because more than anything else rhythm and harmony find their way into the inmost soul and take strongest hold upon it’. The ‘Mozart effect’ refers to the (contested) claim that listening to Mozart’s music can increase your general intelligence.

Harnessing Senses for Good. Religion uses the environment and senses to create a worshipful frame of mind. It is easier to contemplate and pray in the right setting. The design of traditional churches is supposed to connect you with the transcendent, to ‘unbalance you in some ways’. The space asks you to look upwards, as does the incense, which works for smell and sight senses.

6. Practice Social Media Distancing

Social media has given us the power to shape and share our identities and political movements. It also creates global crowds (and crowds can be dangerous), exposes us to manipulation, offers a sophisticated vehicle for propaganda, affects our mental health and can turn us into mini-propagandists.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution. It’s estimated that 83 per cent of the entire global population owns smartphones. The fastest-growing social media platform, TikTok, claims to have over one billion active users. In the UK, over 91 per cent of the population use social media. We are in a unique time – the confluence of algorithms and nudges have made human beings’ brains and behaviours more hackable than ever before.

Digital Footprints. People can be read rather well from their digital footprints. A review, ‘Human and Computer Personality Prediction from Digital Footprints’, summarised how data points like social media posts, smartphone logs and linguistic features have been used by algorithms to predict personality, and concluded that the computer is generally more accurate than human judgements.

The Gods of the Algorithm. Platform design is central to what people see and experience on social media, and platforms do not neutrally present content. For most user-to-user platforms, algorithms are used to curate a unique personalised environment for each person. This offers commercial opportunities, but can also lead to artificial amplification of content, ‘rabbit holes’, feeding people’s natural biases and obsessions, and also potentially to suppression of content.

7. Acknowledge the Power of Propaganda

The key principle, from which the others follow, is ‘polarisation’.

Propaganda Tactics. There are well-defined propaganda tactics to watch out for. In War and Anti-War, Alvin and Heidi Toffler outlined six of them: polarisation, atrocity accusations, demonization and dehumanization, hyperbolic inflations, divine sanction, and meta-propaganda.

The Edible Insects Case Study. A concerted campaign to make us eat creepy crawlies is being pushed by celebrities and supranational organizations. The United Nations and the World Economic Forum are keen advocates of edible insects, because of the claimed environmental benefits. And the UK’s Food Standard’s Agency is currently consulting on edible insects. The EU has already approved crushed cricket flour to be added as an ingredient to bread and other foods.

Fighting Back. On the point of government messaging, there are also well-defined propaganda tactics to watch out for. In War and Anti-War, Alvin and Heidi Toffler outlined six of them. The key principle, from which the others follow, is ‘polarisation’. This involves the creation of an out-group and contrasting its behavior and beliefs with those of the in-group; the in-group’s leaders are heroes, the out-group’s are villains.

8. Know Your Psychological Weaknesses

You have to think about something and keep track of time. If you lose track of time you have lost control of everything.

Fighting Back. How did James survive interrogation? First of all, it was a training programme, survival was guaranteed, so he had an intrinsic advantage. But he still needed resilience. He realised early on that his ‘captors’ were one step ahead of him. It was a game, and the uncomfortable, humiliating and mind-bending moves were as orchestrated as a series of chess moves.

Psychological Resilience. The key to resisting is what’s known as psychological resilience. As we’ve seen in this chapter – and as you’ll see throughout this book – you can build resilience by shoring up your defenses and knowing what you’re up against. One study, for example, found that people who had experienced traumatic life events were less likely to have their memories manipulated by misinformation or leading questions.

Fighting Back. To survive the daily barrage of real-life brainwashing you do not need to be prepared for endless cruelties, but you do need to prepare. You need to understand your psychological weaknesses, and how people seek to exploit them. As the famous Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu said, ‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.’

9. Choose Your Own Reality

The essence of the question is the privacy of your mind.

The Information Battlefield. There is a battle for human attention. More than that, your opponents want to persuade you. They include the all-too-obvious advertisers and marketers, but also big data and predictive analytics, PR and lobbying. Some of the forces of the information battlefield are governments and their agencies. Are they friend or foe? It is not always easy to tell.

Fighting Back. You need to be one step ahead, and this book is your field manual. The first step is to recognise that you are a soldier, and you must prepare for battle. You can get out of this one with your mind intact and under your own control. You might come home with honours. You might even have fun.

The Rules. Acknowledge that all forms of communication are designed to persuade you in some way. Make an effort to note persuasion attempts throughout the day, and the techniques that are being used to do so – and make the deliberate choice to defeat them. Most importantly, read every page of this book – your field manual for surviving the information battlefield.

10. Stand for Something

If you don’t control your mind, someone else will.

Fighting Back. You have to think about something and keep track of time. If you lose track of time you have lost control of everything. That’s why they put you in solitary confinement and turn lights on and off and give people meals at weird times. It is all about information and control.

Fighting Back. To survive the daily barrage of real-life brainwashing you do not need to be prepared for endless cruelties, but you do need to prepare. You need to understand your psychological weaknesses, and how people seek to exploit them. As the famous Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu said, ‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.’

Fighting Back. The key to resisting is what’s known as psychological resilience. As we’ve seen in this chapter – and as you’ll see throughout this book – you can build resilience by shoring up your defences and knowing what you’re up against. One study, for example, found that people who had experienced traumatic life events were less likely to have their memories manipulated by misinformation or leading questions.

Last updated: April 24, 2025