Title: Ideas that wound
Author: inForm@super.zippo.com (Rev. Dennis Erlich)
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 16:22:52 GMT

[editors comments in [] ]

Faithful Reader,

It came to me that Lisa McPherson was murdered by a couple of strange
ideas Elrong believed everyone should share with him:

WHAT TURNS IT ON TURNS IT OFF, and
THE WAY OUT IS THE WAY THROUGH

He made these two principles the centerpieces of his mental tek. It
worked like this: in the course of the mindfuck, should the mark
encounter discomfort, the correct and only approach for the processor
is to continue doing to the mark exactly the same thing that turned on
the reaction, until he quits complaining and feels better about it
being done to him. Or IOW, [in other words] if the mark complains the process is
hurting him, continue doing that precise thing to him, until you
"flatten the button."

So Lisa is gone. Her "button" on eating, sleeping and drinking got
flattened by the Introspection Rundown Isolation Step.

Is this the only time we've seen ideas kill? Class? Not hardly.

But consider a cult compound, where these deadly ideas can, and really
MUST be practiced 100%. The uniformed staff line up for muster and
head count several times a day. They get screamed at. They have
ranks. The public is their enemy. They worry about helicopters.
They stand guard at perimeters. They get awakened at 3 am if their
stats are down.

If they express anything but certainty about the correctness of what
their seniors are ordering them to do, they know they will get sent to
the RPF, the Running Program or worse. They know that if they want to
leave, they will have to try to escape in the middle of the night,
crawl through ditches and flag down a passing car before the guards
notice their absence, and call out the search team to hunt them down
and bring them back.

But their minds are not controlled. Nope. Nevermind that their every
thought and action is being from the time they get up in the morning
and put on their uniforms, to the time the are allowed to crawl into
the sack and rest, is dictated by orders from a chain of command that
extends up through the poodle, to the Dead Elrong and hiss Sakrid
Droppings.

They are not supplied with Nikes by the C-org, but they know when it
comes to orders, "just do it" and "make it go right" are how they
gotta respond. Or else.

But that is not mind control. Nope. 'Cause mind control doesn't
exist.

Rev. Dennis L Erlich * * the inFormer * *
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