An influential book written by Edward L. Bernays in 1928, incorporated the literature from social science and psychological manipulation into an examination of the techniques of public communication. Bernays wrote the book in response to the success of some of his earlier works such as Crystallizing Public Opinion (1923) and A Public Relations Counsel (1927). Propaganda explored the psychology behind manipulating masses and the ability to use symbolic action and propaganda to influence politics, effect social change, and lobby for gender and racial equality. Walter Lippman was Bernays’ unacknowledged American mentor and his work The Phantom Public greatly influenced the ideas expressed in Propaganda a year later. The work propelled Bernays into media historians’ view of him as the “father of public relations.”1
Edward Bernays is considered to be the “father of public relations” and used concepts discovered by his uncle Sigmund Freud to manipulate the public using the subconscious.
Chapter 1 begins with these words (Unless otherwise noted, page numbers refer to the 2004 Ig Publishing edition, ISBN 0970312598):
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. – p. 37
In almost every act of our lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons […] who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world. -p. 37–38
In theory, everybody buys the best and cheapest commodities offered to him on the market. In practice, if every one went around pricing, and chemically testing before purchasing, the dozens of soaps or fabrics or brands of bread which are for sale, economic life would become hopelessly jammed. -p. 39
Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government. – p. 48
Who are the men, who, without our realizing it, give us our ideas, tell us whom to admire and whom to despise, what to believe about the ownership of public utilities .. about immigration who tell us how our houses should be designed, what furniture we should put into them, what menus we should serve at our table, what kind of shirts we must wear, what sports we should indulge in, what plays we should see, what charities we should support, what pictures we should admire, what slang we should affect, what jokes we should laugh at? -p.59
The new profession of public relations has grown up because of the increasing complexity of modern life and the consequent necessity for making the actions of one part of the public understandable to other sectors of the public. It is due, too, to the increasing dependence of organized power of all sorts upon public opinion. Governments, whether they are monarchical, constitutional, democratic or communist, depend upon acquiescent public opinion for the success of their efforts and, in fact, government is government only by virtue of public acquiescence. Industries, public utilities, educational movements, indeed all groups representing any concept or product, whether they are majority or minority ideas, succeed only because of approving public opinion. Public opinion is the unacknowledged partner in all broad efforts.
The public relations counsel, then, is the agent who, working with modern media of communications and the group formations of society, brings an idea to the consciousness of the public. -p. 63If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, it is now possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without them knowing it. -Page 71 (1928 edition?)
If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway. But men do not need to be actually gathered together in a public meeting or in a street riot, to be subject to the influences of mass psychology. Because man is by nature gregarious he feels himself to be member of a herd, even when he is alone in his room with the curtains drawn. His mind retains the patterns which have been stamped on it by the group influences. -Page 73 (1928 edition)
But when the example of the leader is not at hand and the herd must think for itself, it does so by means of clichés, pat words or images which stand for a whole group of ideas or experiences. Not many years ago, it was only necessary to tag a political candidate with the word interests to stampede millions of people into voting against him, because anything associated with “the interests” seemed necessary corrupt. Recently the word Bolshevik has performed a similar service for persons who wished to frighten the public away from a line of action.
By playing upon a old cliché, or manipulating a new one, the propagandist can sometimes swing a whole mass group emotions. -Page 74It is chiefly the psychologists of the school of Freud who have pointed out that many of man’s thoughts and actions are compensatory substitutes for desires which he has been obliged to suppress. A thing may be desired not for its intrinsic worth or usefulness, but because he has unconsciously come to see in it a symbol of something else, the desire for which he is ashamed to admit to himself…This general principle, that men are very largely actuated by motives which they conceal from themselves, is as true of mass as of individual psychology…Human desires are the steam which makes the soial machine work. Only by understanding them can the propagandist control that cast, loose-jointed mechanism which is modern society. -Page 75 as quoted in Historical Archaeologies of Capitalism edited by Mark P. Leone, Jocelyn E. Knauf, p.40
While, under the handicraft of small-unit system of production was that typical a century ago, demand created the supply, today supply must actively seek to create its corresponding demand. A single factory, potentially capable of supplying a whole continent with its particular product, cannot afford to wait until the public asks for its product; it must maintain constant touch, through advertising and propaganda, with the vast public in order to assure itself the continuous demand which alone will make its costly plant profitable. This entails a vastly more complex system of distribution than formerly. -Page 84
No serious sociologist any longer believes that the voice of the people expresses any divine or specially wise and lofty idea. The voice of the people expresses the mind of the people, and that mind is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and clichés and verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders. -Page 109
One reason, perhaps, why the politician today is slow to take up methods which are a commonplace in business life is that he has such ready entry to the media of communication on which his power depends.
The newspaperman looks to him for news. And by his power of giving or withholding information the politician can often effectively censor political news. But being dependent, every day of the year and for year after year, upon certain politicians for news, the newspaper reporters are obliged to work in harmony with their news sources. – Page 120Propaganda is of no use to the politician unless he has something to say which the public, consciously or unconsciously, wants to hear. – Page 123
America has been plagued by a powerful mind control tactic which was suggested, experimented with, and fully implemented over a century ago by a man named [lightbox full=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiKMmrG1ZKU”]Edward Bernays[/lightbox]. The time has come for Americans to come to grips with the content and theories that Bernays used to influence American history. It’s time to call out the legacy of deceit and manipulation that this man brought to American history; by doing this, only then can America begin to heal from the web of psychological damage inflicted on a nation.
This tactic of psychological manipulation, control and deceit has spawned into a world-wide media propaganda practice (which he personally developed for the CIA) that has proven venomous and destructive, and that has been directly and indirectly responsible for the death of tens of millions of people in the past century alone.
It was the deceptive Bernays who studied his uncle’s work (Sigmund Freud) on psychoanalysis and thought through his own theories about human behavior and how to manipulate the masses. When speaking of Bernays we are talking about a man who seemed unattached to human suffering. Bernays seems to have walked through life proud of what he had discovered. There seems to be no indication that he ever actually realized the magnitude of the damage he inflicted on humanity by putting into practice his deceptive mind control theories, to be used for promoting ideas that were not necessarily true and ideas that would be used to control humans. Bernays’ pride seemed to have come from knowing that his predictions about human behavior were correct. There are no indications that he felt any remorse for what he had done.
Despite all of this, Bernays is respected and esteemed in a positive manner by Hollywood and constituents. He seemed to have walked through life under the radar of fame. He managed to manipulate the world, including showing politicians how to sell wars to the general public while millions of innocent people and troops from both sides of the world wars died in vain.
It’s time for America to come together to reverse the Edward Bernays effect. Let’s do what we can to expose the deceptive public persuasion techniques he implemented and let the world know there is a manual on how to lie to the public and manipulate the masses into believing propaganda lies.
3 Steps to take to solve the problem
As a nation we can begin to peel apart the lies and deception of Edward Bernays one by one and tell the public today what Bernays refused to tell them then. Three steps can be taken to trigger the reversal of the Edward Bernays effect:
First step is to educate those we come in contact with about exactly who Edward Bernays was. It is important to note that he was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, the most popular and influential figure in the American psychology books and literature. Understanding who Bernays was will likely shed a very different light on how many perceive Sigmund Freud and his work. It will make you wonder if Freud’s work would even be spoken about today had it not been for his nephew promoting his uncle’s work.
Second step is to realize that although humans CAN be influenced by getting them to respond to unconscious primitive urges, that doesn’t mean that we should be striving to do this. Just because something is possible doesn’t mean we should seek to do it. It is possible to skin a cat alive, it is however, a crime and an immoral, heartless and psychopathic thing to do. Bernays was apparently so manipulative and self-absorbed he managed to stop humanity at the first level of logic which I call the ‘Frankenstein experiment’ level; ‘since it is possible, then let’s do it and see how it works.’ In other words, Bernays agreed to be an instrument of deceit to destroy the lives of many just so he can observe the results and receive the glory of being the master manipulator or more officially the founding father of modern day public relations.
By all standards, humanity recognizes that if someone does something that causes the death and destruction of millions, then that action should be punishable and recognized as an evil or immoral deed. No such case when dealing with a historic master manipulator; Bernays died with more blood on his hands than possibly anyone else in American history, yet he was never tried for his crimes against humanity or was ever in jail for what he did.
Third, once you realize the damage implemented by Bernays’ lies and deceit it is up to you to work toward reversing these lies and deception. Let’s tell the world that truth is not determined by a billboard, a cleverly timed mass media article, a TV commercial, a movie trailer or any stage that feeds information to the masses. Truth is not determined by how you FEEL about it or how the messenger delivers the message. We have feelings and those feeling have NOTHING to do with what is true. Let’s admit that we are all vulnerable to manipulation by messages that are based on emotion and sensation. These emotions and sensations can be manipulated with sound and sight, music and emotional outbursts, powerful speeches and rhyming phrases.
Let’s equally realize that human intelligence, commonsense and reason is a special gift that though it doesn’t serve government much, it serves YOU the individual very much. Edward Bernays could have just as easily studied how the people can manipulate governments or how everyday people can promote themselves to corporations to live dynamic and successful lives. Instead he chose the dark side and gave all his work to government and the process of controlling the masses in such a way that it gave controlling governments all the power to kill and destroy.
Will you be someone perpetuating the Edward Bernays lies? Are you willing to look into this topic and see where this man pulled humanity and America in the wrong direction for over a century now? Think for a minute what this world would be like if we can pull together to reverse the evil etched into the consciousness of humanity by one man? I absolutely believe this reversal is possible and is already in progress. With every passing day more and more people are hearing and wondering a little more about just who this guy was and why do most American have no idea who he was.
Moving on
Enough of the dark theories which have plagued humanity for too long. It’s time to move on from the basic lessons learned. Marketing and public relations are based on lies; all politics and politicians live and die by public relations, lies and carefully timed talking points and sequential messages. The government NEEDS the press and all of its marketing tools to deceive the public into believing what it wants the public to believe. This persuasion IS the matrix of lies and deceit we live in, and this system of cognitive persuasion authored by Bernays IS the very lifeline of the establishment government. To believe anything different is to believe in fantasies and conspiracies.
The Edward Bernays work is a clear record of the cognitive manipulation of humanity. Don’t ignore it, instead confront the reality of it and join humanity as we work to REVERSE this effect for good.
Humanity is gifted with reason and highly intellectual cognitive skills that are far superior to the skills of other animals; yet even animals, many of which are incredibly resourceful, instinctual, intuitive and highly respectful of nature, won’t do some of the things humans do. Will you allow the work of one man erase these incredible skills you are equipped with? Often people speak about waking up, elevating consciousness or going down the rabbit hole of truth and it may just be that these terms refer to simply reversing the Edward Bernays effect. What do You think?
Bernie Suarez is an activist, critical thinker, radio host, musician, M.D, Veteran, lover of freedom and the Constitution, and creator of the Truth and Art TV project. He also has a background in psychology and highly recommends that everyone watch a documentary titled The Century of the Self. Bernie has concluded that the way to defeat the New World Order is to truly be the change that you want to see. Manifesting the solution and putting truth into action is the very thing that will defeat the globalists.
