(Clearwisdom.net)

The persecution of Falun Gong by Jiang's regime has lasted for over five years. During the early stages when a propaganda campaign to defame Falun Gong was launched across the country, or during the later stages with the widespread efforts to "transform" Falun Gong practitioners (forcing them to sign personal guarantees to give up their belief) still underway today, at all times over the last five years, the persecutors have accused Falun Gong of mind control (or thought control). This alleged "mind control" is used to justify the label of "evil cult." Many people who do not know the truth still accept the falsehoods spread in the propaganda.

Who is controlling people's minds in China? Who is truly guilty of "mind-control"? Here I would like share my personal opinions on this issue. I hope that people will show concern about it and help those who have been deceived to become clear on the truth.

I. What is mind control?

To clearly determine who is controlling people's minds, we should first make clear what mind control is.

Throughout the hate propaganda by the official media towards Falun Gong, mind control is a term frequently used by Jiang's regime and its mouthpieces. None of them had ever done any serious research on or given any scientific explanation of the concept however. What is mind control after all? In order to answer this question, let's first have a look at two other relevant concepts: "thought spread" and "mind enlightening by education."

From the social psychology angle, "thought spread" refers to the process of a person (or a group of people) influencing others with their thoughts. The person who influences the others is called the spreader while those who are influenced are called subjects. Thought spread could be intentional or unintentional. There are two kinds of intentional thought spread. One is to educate. The other is to control - mind control.

Education's purpose is not to make people blindly follow the thoughts of the spreader, so as to be controlled by the spreader. On the contrary, it aims at helping people to think independently and come to their own conclusions. Therefore, the spreader encourages independent thinking in his subjects.

During the process of mind control, however, the spreader uses all possible means to have the subjects give up or lose their ability to think independently, so as to ultimately make the subjects follow his thoughts blindly and to be completely in his control.

Mind control could be further divided into two categories. One is the controller openly and forcibly making his subjects accept his thoughts unconditionally and without reserve. This is also called "brainwashing." The other kind is whereby the spreader achieves his purpose without force, gently but surely leading the audience in an attempt to control them subconsciously and imperceptibly.

Thus, the fundamental difference between mind control and education lies in the thought spreader's motives.

Yet, what is independent thinking? Personally, I believe the key to form independent thinking is individual awareness. All thinking with such awareness could be termed as independent thinking. During independent thinking, individual thought activity is active and creative, which manifests in individual differences to a certain degree. On the contrary, once a person loses his ability to think independently, his thoughts will be passive and mechanical, a carbon copy of the spreaders, parroting the spreader's thoughts.

Above all, independent thinking is the enemy of mind control. Mind control is always opposed to independent thinking. In the dictionary of mind controllers, there is absolutely no position for independent thinking. This is the most obvious characteristic of mind control.