Rape Of The Mind:

The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduced them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.  –Gustave Le Bon

Totalitarianism is the modern phenomenon of total centralized state power coupled with the obliteration of individual human rights. In the totalized state, there are those in power and there are the objectified masses, the victims. –Arthur Versluis

Menticide is an old crime against the human mind and spirit but systematized anew.  It is an organized system of psychological intervention and judicial perversion through which a [ruling class] can imprint [their] own opportunistic thoughts upon the minds of those [they] plan to use and destroy. – Joost Meerloo

Each wave of terrorizing… creates its effects more easily – after a breathing spell – then the one that preceded it because people are still disturbed by their previous experience. Morality becomes lower and lower, and the psychological effects of each new propaganda campaign become stronger; it reaches a public already softened up. – Joost Meerloo

Logic can be met with logic, while illogic cannot – it confuses those who think straight. The Big Lie and monotonously repeated nonsense have more emotional appeal… than logic and reason. While the [people] are] still searching for a reasonable counter-argument to the first lie, the totalitarians can assault [them] with another. – Joost Meerloo

Modern technology teaches man to take for granted the world he is looking at; he takes no time to retreat and reflect. Technology lures him on, dropping him into its wheels and movements. No rest, no meditation, no reflection, no conversation – the senses are continually overloaded with stimuli. [Man] doesn’t learn to question his world anymore; the screen offers him answers – ready – made. –Joost Meerloo

Pavlov made another significant discovery: the conditioned reflex could be developed most easily in a quiet laboratory with a minimum of disturbing stimuli Every trainer of animals knows this from his own experiences; isolation and the patient repetition of stimuli are required to tame wild animals… The totalitarians have followed this rule. They know that they can condition their political victims most quickly if they are kept in isolation.

Totalitarianism is man’s escape from the fearful realities of life into the virtual womb of the leaders. The individual’s actions are directed from this womb – from the inner sanctum… man need no longer assume responsibility for his own life. The order and logic of the prenatal world reign. There is peace and silence, the peace of utter submission.

Civilization In Transition:

The first step out is to bring order into our own minds and provide inspiration for others to follow.

It is not for nothing that our age cries out for the redeemer personality, for the one who can emancipate himself from the grip of the collective [ psychosis] and save at least his own soul, who lights a beacon of hope for others, proclaiming that here is at least one man who has succeeded in extricating himself from the fatal identity with the group psyche. – Carl Jung

We must learn to treat the demagogue and aspirant dictators in our midst… with the weapon of ridicule. The demagogue himself is almost incapable of humor of any sort, and if we treat him with humor, he will begin to collapse. – Joost meerloo

…what else are parallel structures than an area where a different life can be lived, a life that is in harmony with its own aims and which in turn structures itself in harmony with those aims? What else are those initial attempts at social self-organization than the efforts of a certain part of society… to rid itself of the self-sustaining aspects of totalitarianism and, thus, to extricate itself radically from its involvement in the… totalitarian system? – Vaclav Havel

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph – Thomas Paine