Mind-control and manipulation is nothing new. It began when Satan induced one third of the angelic host to rebel against a benevolent God. With the superhuman wisdom, understanding and power that the angels have, only an extraordinary blinding of their intelligence could have achieved this feat. Satan did that successfully.

With one success at hand, it was a minor job for Satan to control and manipulate human minds that are no match for angelic intelligence. Yet the checks and balances created by God are so powerful that in spite of six millennia of Satanic distortion, persuasion, and inducement, the humans are not yet fully on his side.

At the same time, the switching of allegiance from God to Satan has assumed alarming proportions in the twentieth century. Not only unbelievers, but even children of God have begun to follow this master-strategist in the twentieth century. Satan has been aided in this task by the modern technological breakthroughs, specially the ones dealing with communication and medicine. So far his inability to be at many places simultaneously was a hindrance to the execution of his plans, but with modern mass media communication technology it has now become possible for him to influence large masses in spite of his physical limitations. Thus it is time for concerned Christians to take action.

The subject of Mind Manipulation has a special interest for those who are in the field of apologetics and polemics. This is because today many arguments are won by influencing and controlling the MINDS directly instead of allowing a process of reasoning and sorting out the truth. Reasoning alone does not work directly in such situations, and the apologist would have to use additional tools to unmask error and also to defend truth.


Mind Control And The Bible: Most Christians have heard only about mind control methods used in Communist countries and other similar dictatorships. Thus they consider it only as a subject of political interest. The intimate connection of this subject with the spiritual life is unknown to many of them. Yet Mind Control has deep connection with spiritual life.

When a father chooses a spiritually and morally corrupt but academically excellent school for his children (over another one that has excellent spiritual atmosphere but which is not the top school in the country), he is exhibiting his naïveté about the power of mind control. He does not realize that soon he will have his son or daughter back with high honours, but totally decadent in mind. Once minds have been captured, and once degenerate passions have been instilled, they would begin practicing it all as soon as they gain their independence. Thus human mind is a definite component in the spiritual life of every person.

Human mind is such an important factor in spiritual life that mind-related words are used hundreds of times in the Bible. Here is a sample list of some of these words:

Mind/Minds 111 Times
Thought/Thoughts 139 Times
Think/Thinks 82 Times
Heart/Hearts 963 Times

There are many more mind-related words, but this statistics is sufficient to alert every thinking person about the importance of this subject. There are many topics in the Bible which are not mentioned even one tenth of this many times but to which we give great importance. Thus, this subject must also be given the importance due to it.

Some might feel that in spite of the data above, question still arise as to whether human mind has such an intimate relationship with spiritual life. Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:3 says, "I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your MINDS should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ" (NASB). Obviously mind has a direct relationship with one's spiritual choices, and this is why Paul is greatly concerned about their minds.

The same idea is affirmed in Ephesians 4:17-19 which in NASB says, "This I say therefore, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer as the gentiles also walk, in the futility of their MIND, being darkened in their UNDERSTANDING, excluded from the life of God, because of the IGNORANCE that is in them, because of the hardness of their HEART; And they, having become CALLOUS, have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness". This passage also makes it clear that once the minds are controlled or influenced, people get into ALL kinds of impurity with GREED. To those who have been observing society in the light of the Scripture for some time, this does not come as a surprise.


Human Mind And Spirituality: Everyone these days is worried about the coldness and degeneration seen in the spiritual world. However, very few of them are able to perceive that part of the reason is our inability to guard our hearts.

We seek the best education, job, housing, and society for us and our children. Many of us prefer to watch the best TV programmes, even if we have to spend money and get a cable connection. Most of us also look for the best church for fellowship. However, in all these the criteria are not how they feed and conserve our minds but rather how good are these from earthly standards. Yet in all these things we ought to give priority to how they contribute to a healthy and spiritual mind.

In 1 Peter 3:15, the apostle says that we should "set apart Christ as Lord in our HEARTS". If our obedience has to show in life, it has be originate in our mind. Proverbs 4:23 says, "Keep your HEART with all diligence; for it is the source of all life". The communists have known this because they are reported to have said that if the first few years of a child are given to them they can ensure that the child would always remain loyal to communist ideology.

Consequently, all degenerate movements and bizarre cults aim directly at the human minds. The rest follows automatically. This blinding and controlling of human minds is mentioned by Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:4 when he says, "In whose case the god of this world has BLINDED the MINDS of the unbelieving that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ...". About believers losing their spiritual balance, Paul says even that too begins in the mind. In 2 Thessalonians 2:2 he says, "That ye be not soon shaken in MIND, or be troubled ...".

The whole of Psalms 119 is a description of the Scripture takes control of the human mind to produce a holy life. The same insight is repeated in Proverbs, which also reminds that a man's character is dictated by what he is in his mind. "As a man thinks, so he is" (Prov. 23:7).

Much is at stake in this battle for minds, and no Christian should remain ignorant about it. Christian apologists have much more to worry in this realm because many times its subtle tactics defy common rules of logic and reason. Only an insight into the workings of the deceptive mind manipulation techniques will help the apologist to win the war to capture minds.
To understand the ways in which mind manipulators capture people's thinking, it would be helpful first to look at one aspect of the human mind.

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A human can act in the ways: through thoughts, words, and deeds. The possible range of these actions is infinite, ranging from the holy to the unholy, mature to immature, wise to stupid, and from the proper to the improper. From a biblical point of view all these possible actions can be divided into: essential actions, desirable actions, tolerable actions, and forbidden actions. These can be put in sequence as follows:

All Possible Actions
Forbidden Actions
Tolerable Actions
Desirable Actions
Essential Actions

Possible Actions: Obviously, the range of all possible actions is vast, and includes actions that are both proper as well as improper. When these actions are separated from each other, we get at least four different categories of human actions.

Essential Actions: The smallest group is made up of all the actions essential for a believer. This would include love for God, commitment, honesty, etc. Every believer is supposed to fulfill these requirements from his own free will.

Desirable Actions: The next larger group would be made up of desirable actions. These are not compulsory, but it is highly desirable to see these in the lives of believers. This would include all those activities and choices that strengthen a believers holy walk and viewpoint.

Tolerable Actions: The next group would include all those thoughts and actions which are not expected in a believer, but at the same time which are not sinful. This is similar to the speech and actions of a growing up baby that are abandoned when he grows up. Parents tolerate many things in a growing up child with the right expectation these things would go away with the eventual arrival of maturity. Though not sinful in themselves, these things can lead a person to sin if he does not abandon it with growth.

Forbidden Actions: Then comes the collection of all those thoughts and actions that are totally forbidden for a believer. This would include all those activities that are sinful, unethical, and which are even on the periphery of sin. There is no way for a believer to justify getting into this region of thoughts and actions.

These four regions are separated from each other by mental (and some social) barriers that must at all times be respected by the believer. The essence of mind-control is to manipulate these barriers, so that the believer is attracted to step out of his boundaries, and therefore it would be helpful to look at some length upon the barriers themselves.
The Barriers

Whether a person indulges in a certain thought or action depends very much upon the barriers in his mind. These barriers separating the possible actions from actions to be avoided are neither physical nor visible. They are formed in human mind through the repetitive instructions and warning received.

Parents are the first to tell children about these things. The moment a parent uses the word NO, he or she tells the child that there is an invisible barrier that he ought not to cross. Eventually other members of the family, church members, teachers, and even the society would reinforce these boundaries. The ultimate source of these barriers is God himself, who asked man to abstain voluntarily from eating the forbidden fruit. There is a vast range of forbidden things, and the Scripture throws ample light on these matters. Accepting these Scriptural commands results in groundwork for forming the boundaries.

Repetition is a key word here. God-fearing parents consistently and regularly instruct their children about desirable and undesirable behaviour. They train up the child in the way he should walk, which means that they train him to make the right choices (Prov. 22:7). This includes rejecting what is evil and sinful. With long-term repetition, the boundaries become clear and strong. This is emphasized in many places in the Scripture (Ps. 119:23, 48, 99; 1 Tim. 4:15; Rom. 12:3, Phil. 4:8).

Certain properties of these barriers make it easy for interested people to manipulate them, and right from the beginning it is essential to understand these properties:

INVISIBLE NATURE: First, these barriers are totally invisible and therefore the work of laying and strengthening them cannot be seen directly. Consequently one has to follow elaborate (but straightforward) methods to create and sustain them. On the other hand, their invisible nature makes it easy for any determined enemy to attack and damage them while nobody realizes that an erosion has been set into motion.

NON MATERIAL NATURE: Second, these barriers are completely non-material. Thus it is not possible to check them physically or visually. This raises the possibility that damages inflicted to these boundaries, specially in a surreptitious manner, cannot easily be measured. This gives great strategic advantage to the enemy.

PERISHABLE NATURE: Third, these barriers can be altered and even destroyed. Such a manipulation of the barriers would result in the believer indulging in thoughts and actions improper for him. There is no automatic safeguard against all this.

FORMATION NOT AUTOMATIC: Fourth, these barriers are not formed automatically. Nor are they reinforced unaided. Rather, the fallen human nature only resists them and motivates men to violate them at every possible opportunity. Thus every person has to take initiative in seeing that such barriers exist in his mind and also that they are constantly reinforced.

VOLITIONAL NATURE: Fifth, every person has to remain within the boundaries out of his own will. There is no external agency or person that would normally prevent a person from violating these boundaries. True, the social norms, other believers, and one's own family might put some sort of pressure, but ultimately none of them can always serve as a watchdog over a free person. Further, none of them can ever exert absolute power of prevention.

Though God is powerful enough to force us to do things, even He does not impose His will upon humans. Instead of making us as machines, that cannot cross their set boundaries, man has been created as a free moral being who must weigh his actions and take decisions out of his own free will. This was made clear in the garden of Eden, and this is made clear through the Scripture even today.

In essence, the invisible and non material barriers have to be formed by each independent believer with the aid of the family and the Scripture. The three enemies of the believer (the world, the flesh, and the devil) would try to either shift or to totally destroy these barriers. Since the boundaries are invisible, they can do their work with great efficiency. Since only external factors are there as indicators of whether the barrier is being attacked, a believer should carefully weigh the ultimate impact of all his choices upon these barriers.
Thought Life And The Barriers

Since human mind is the ultimate seat of all the boundaries observed by a person, the thought life has intimate connection with a person's commitment and purity. This is one reason why the Scripture emphasizes that as a man thinks so he becomes. Holy thoughts lead to sanctity unholy thoughts lead to degeneracy.

The Scripture reminds believers not to desire the company of the evil (Ps. 1:1-2), and not to listen to their suggestions because this deeply influences one's thought life. Jesus took a very serious view of "mental adultery" and placed it at the level of actual adultery because it gradually attacks the boundaries. A person continually indulging in fantasies would eventually lose the resistance to flee from lustful temptations. The thought life is to be guarded carefully (Joshua 1:8; Ps. 119:23, 99; Phil. 4:8; Romans 12:3).

Since the thought life is both invisible as well as non-physical, it is difficult to keep it under lock and key. Further, sine the sense organs as well as organs of perception are all connected directly to the human mind, it is never at rest. Thus, the human thoughts can be touched and influenced through the manipulation of human senses. The world knows this, and uses many techniques to craftily reach the mind and control it. This is all the more reason for a believer to guard his mind against all unwanted and deceptive influences. "Keep your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life" (Prov. 4:23, Amplified).
Mind Control For Opposing
The Christian Faith

Satan and his hosts have been attacking mankind for last six thousand years. They have effectively used loyal humans for attaining this goal. It is these humans who have developed all kinds of deviant philosophies and tactics to attack the Bible and the Christian faith.

For almost six millennia their attacks were direct, somewhat like the face-to-face wars of history. But just as the face-to-face combat has been replaced today by strategic war from a distance, the combating forces against the Bible have also adopted the same approach. Thus a good proportion of the attacking coming up against the Bible and the Christian faith today are indirect and subtle. Mind-control methods play an important role in this war against Christianity.

The rationalists, the atheists, the theological radicals, the humanists, the new-agers, the cultists, the heretics, and the destroyers of Biblical morality, all use these techniques. This indirect war gives them great advantage that Christians are not able to spot their enemies easily. The present-day tolerance of heretical writers, the tolerance of anti-family movements, prevalence of abortion, divorces, premarital and postmarital impurity, and the general skepticism about Biblical values can also be attributed to the subtle mind-control methods used by proponents of these movement. This is the reason why the anti-Christian elements have been able to succeed so much in their mission in the twentieth century. Only a good perception of their tactics coupled with keen observation would help Christian apologists to fight back.

With the above things in mind we can now look more specifically into the ways in which the world tries to control human minds. Unless we understand their tactics and unless we fight back, we stand only to lose much more than what we have already lost.

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Original article contributed by Dr. Johnson C. Philip & Dr. Saneesh Cherian. Revised by:

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