The Science of Religious Conversion + History of Psychological Warfare

“Psychological Warfare: Military Aspects – Selected and Annotated Bibliography.” By the Central Intelligence Agency. Edited by Fred Zimmerman. Published by Nimble Books. May 14, 2024. 

Book Description – Amazon:

The document, “Psychological Warfare: Military Aspects”, offers a comprehensive bibliography of resources related to psychological warfare, spanning from World War I to the Korean War (up to November 1953). It is divided into two parts:

Part I (Classified): Contains bibliographies, documents, and government publications that were classified at the time of publication.

Part II (Unclassified): Includes bibliographies, books, documents, government publications, and periodicals accessible to the public.

Both parts are organized thematically, covering areas like:

1. Effects: Examining the impact of psychological warfare on both individuals and populations.

2. Instruction: Resources providing guidance on planning and executing psychological operations.

3. Mechanical Methods: Exploring the tools and technologies used for disseminating propaganda, such as leaflets, loudspeakers, and radio broadcasts.

4. Military Instruction: Materials focused on training military personnel in psychological warfare principles and techniques.

5. Nature and Theory of P.W.: Delving into the fundamental concepts and principles underpinning psychological warfare.

6. Tactical and Strategic: Analyzing the application of psychological warfare in different operational contexts.

7. World War I & II and Korean War: Specific resources related to psychological warfare activities during these conflicts.

Key Observations:

1. Evolution of Psychological Warfare: The bibliography highlights the development of psychological warfare throughout the 20th century, showcasing its increasing sophistication and importance in modern conflicts.

2. Focus on Effectiveness: Several resources emphasize evaluating and measuring the impact of psychological operations, reflecting a growing concern with understanding their effectiveness.

3. Diverse Methods and Media: The bibliography covers a wide range of propaganda dissemination tools, from traditional leaflets and loudspeakers to more advanced radio broadcasting techniques.

4. Importance of Training: Numerous entries focus on military instruction and training materials, underscoring the need for skilled personnel to plan and execute effective psychological operations.

5. Theoretical Foundations: The inclusion of resources on the nature and theory of psychological warfare demonstrates the growing academic and intellectual interest in this field.

An excerpt from, “The Unquiet Mind: The Autobiography of a Physician in Psychological Medicine” by William Sargant, 1967, Pg. 116 – 118:

During my convalescense, I read all the books I could find on the subject of sudden religious conversion, among them William James’s Variety of Religious Experience, and observed how often conversions to beliefs diametrically opposed to those of previous habit would follow long periods of accumulated anxiety, doubt, physical debilitation, or a sudden overwhelming emotional crisis. All these books reported changes in brain function similar to those we had witnessed while abreacting severe war neuroses and to those that Pavlov had noted in his terrified dogs. At some of these revival meetings, for instance, people would suddenly give vent to feelings totally contradicting their past social and domestic attitudes. Loved ones became unaccountably hated, previously despised religious beliefs were avidly swallowed, and former attitudes to sex transmogrified.

I was also examining modern techniques of psychotherapy, especially psychoanalysis, to see how far these two corresponded with the same various methods used all over the world for cure or conversion; and at last realized the significance of Freud’s statement that if ever his abreactive treatments brought no release of emotion they were generally useless. Although he had not gone so far as we had in consciously stimulating false emotions under excitatory drugs, the literature of psychoanalysis again and again described the sudden breakdown of a patient’s resistance under induced anxiety: what is called a patient’s ‘positive and negative transference’ to the analyst can switch backwards and forwards as he is subjected to greater or lesser stress during his daily ordeals on the couch. Freudian conversions in fact closely resembled those so constantly reported in religious literature, when the sinner at last realizes that his intellectual defences have been overrun: the patient being prepared to accept the analyst’s interpretation of what ails him, speculations sometimes so far-fetched that he would probably have rejected them as utterly ridiculous before his analysis started. This moment of surrender is now, in Freudian terminology, called “gaining insight”—namely into the analyst’s doctrinal diagnosis of the illness. Such conversions often enable the patient to adopt entirely new modes of thought and behavior, especially after daily bouts of induced excitement or anxiety on the couch. One of the analyst’s main difficulties is, like Wesley’s, with back-sliders. Though it may take them years to achieve a surrender on the couch, many still need a succession of surrenders before attaining a permanent state of grace: John Bunyan is a classic religious instance. Some of the most eminent analysts have therefore had to go on being analysed themselves for years on end to stabilize their faith and to be completely certain of the theoretical causes of their own problems.

One of my patients told me that her husband had been converted to a peculiarly extreme Christian sect by his father’s sudden death in an air-raid. He found the corpse in a bombed shelter and noticing some religious tracts beside him, took them home to read. Though having always despised his father as a religious crank, he now suddenly saw the light, accepted the Gospel message without the least reservation, and became near-fanatical in practising it. The shock of sudden bereavement and possibly the terror of being blitzed himself had reversed his previous pattern of thought. He remained for years faithful to his new-found beliefs.

I felt almost guilty, after my Methodist upbringing, to have connected Pavlov’s experiments on animals with Wesley’s revivalist techniques which had changed the whole moral face of eighteenth-century Britain; but the comparison seemed justified by the discovery of so many similar techniques of changing a behaviour pattern by subjecting a man to emotional stress.

The first outcome of these studies was a paper in which I collaborated with the late Dr. H. J. Shorvon. We were writing it in the active V2 rocket period which, I thought shortly, would have been absolutely perfect for Wesley’s preaching technique: an eternity of hell fire might be said to await any sinner caught by an unannounced explosion without a moment allowed for death-bed repentance! Wesley had also combined an account of the great Lisbon earthquake, which caused sudden disastrous loss of life, with suggestions that such an event might also happen in England, and felt this sort of threat could be a great aid to conversion.