by Robert Cialdini and Peter Koenig for the Saker Blog

Have you ever wondered how a herd of sheep is driven to their slaughterhouse? Manipulation of minds is a well-studied science, has been applied already for centuries, but is getting ever more sophisticated. For example, the many poignant assertions, Joseph Goebbels, Hitlers Minister of Propaganda (1933 to 1945), included, “if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth”; or “if you make people believe in the threat of an enemy, they’ll do your bidding”– and “divide and polarize them, destroy their solidarity, and they follow your command”.

Today we have become more sophisticated. While fear is still the weapon of choice – imagine an invisible enemy that everybody is scared of – we have digitally observant media, algorithms and robots that focus on your thinking, how you react and deal with social media, or what websites you consult, and where and what you shop. This is just to mention a few points of information. Today there are on average about 200 such data to be electronically computed, so as to sway your opinion and to make you believe the most flagrant lies.

You may recognize what covid is doing to you and at what state of manipulation we are – how close to the slaughterhouse are we? The seven stages below synthesize the book ‘Influence, The Power of Persuasion’, by Robert Cialdini.

Hypnotherapists have been noticing blatant hypnosis and Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) techniques being used by the government and state-controlled media. NPL is a psychological approach that involves analyzing strategies used by successful individuals and applying them to reach a personal goal. It relates thoughts, language, and patterns of behavior learned through experience to specific outcomes.

Listen to this:

👉 Fractionation:

You get them to do something not once, but again and again, increasing the level of intensity each time. Usually, you do it 3 times. (At the first lockdown I said – watch out, there’ll be a 2nd and a 3rd) This increases compliance – you’re much more likely to get them to do whatever you want.

👉 A ‘Yes’ set:

Get them to say ‘Yes’ to something small at first (just two weeks to “flatten the curve”) then gradually increase (months of lockdown, Christmas cancelled, socially/economically coerced into vaccines). In this way they’re much more likely to keep saying yes. (There would’ve been riots if they’d said in March lockdowns will carry on through Christmas.)

👉 Confusion:

Keep them in a constant state of uncertainty. The conscious mind responds to this by ‘going offline’ as it searches for the appropriate response for something it has no precedent for. Then it’s much easier for the manipulator to gain access to the unconscious mind and change belief systems. For example, lockdown rules are changing on practically a day-to-day basis; we’re living in a world we’ve never lived in before, everyone’s stumbling about with no idea how to behave. We’ve no energy left to fight our oppressors.

👉 Repetition:

Repeat the same information over and over (see any newspaper / TV news for evidence of this!)

👉 Illusion of Choice

Make them believe they’re in control by giving them 2 choices, both of which lead to the same result. For example, ‘Do you want the Pfeizer or the Oxford?’ or ‘You can choose to be good or bad. Bad = more lockdown. Good = more lockdown.’

👉 “Social Proof”

“Look, all these great celebrities are backing it!”

👉 “Scarcity”

“You’ll have to wait your turn for the vaccine… we might be running out”

And so many more… All classic psychological control techniques. Once you see it, you can’t un-see it.

Check out the book ‘Influence’, The Power of Persuasion’ by Robert Cialdini – all the methods he talks about are being used daily in the news and other media.

If we realize in time that this is what is happening to us, that this theory applied is behind covid and using covid for a much more freedom encroaching ulterior goal – total control of humanity, of people’s behavior, of food, of resources – over whether people live or die – and of the world’s riches – then we might have a chance to break out from the herd that storms towards the abyss – or the slaughterhouse.

Waking up – protesting – disobeying – and reconnecting with each other. NOW.


Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he has worked for over 30 years on water and environment around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter Koenig is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.