Brain-Washing (book)
Encyclopedia
Church of Scientology
The Church of Scientology is an organization devoted to the practice and the promotion of the Scientology belief system. The Church of Scientology International is the Church of Scientology's parent organization, and is responsible for the overall ecclesiastical management, dissemination and...
in 1955. It purports to be a condensation of the work of Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was a Georgian Soviet politician and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus under Joseph Stalin during World War II, and Deputy Premier in the postwar years ....
, the Soviet secret police
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
chief. Its true authorship remains unclear, the three common hypotheses being: scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard
L. Ron Hubbard
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard , better known as L. Ron Hubbard , was an American pulp fiction author and religious leader who founded the Church of Scientology...
, Kenneth Goff
Kenneth Goff
Kenneth Goff was a Christian Identity minister and anti-Communist crusader. He was the 1944 national chairman of Gerald L. K. Smith's Christian Youth for America. According to his biographical material, he was a member of the Communist Party of the United States of America from May 2, 1936, to...
(alias Oliver Kenneth Goff), or both swiping a common U.S. agency report.
It is also sometimes referred to as "The Communist Manual of Psycho-Political Warfare" or the "Communist Manual of Instructions of Psychopolitical Warfare".
L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology
It says that it is a transcript of a speech on the use of psychiatryPsychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
as a means of social control, given by Lavrenty Beria in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in 1950. However L. Ron Hubbard, Jr., son of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard
L. Ron Hubbard
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard , better known as L. Ron Hubbard , was an American pulp fiction author and religious leader who founded the Church of Scientology...
, stated:
"Dad wrote every word of it. Barbara Bryan and my wife typed the manuscript off his dictation."
Hubbard's former editor, John Sanborn, confirmed Hubbard Jr.'s testimony.
Hubbard tried to present the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
with a copy, but the Bureau expressed skepticism about the document's authenticity. The book has Beria using obvious Hubbardisms such as "thinkingness" or "pain-drug-hypnosis", and making an unlikely mention of Dianetics
Dianetics
Dianetics is a set of ideas and practices regarding the metaphysical relationship between the mind and body that was invented by the science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard and is practiced by followers of Scientology...
side by side with Christian Science
Christian Science
Christian Science is a system of thought and practice derived from the writings of Mary Baker Eddy and the Bible. It is practiced by members of The First Church of Christ, Scientist as well as some others who are nonmembers. Its central texts are the Bible and the Christian Science textbook,...
and Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
as major world wide "healing groups".
In 1963 the Australian Board of Inquiry regarded the book as written by Hubbard, something that neither Hubbard nor the Church of Scientology's HASI Hubbard Association of Scientologists International
Hubbard Association of Scientologists International
The Hubbard Association of Scientologists or HAS was the original corporation founded in 1954 by L. Ron Hubbard that managed all Scientology organizations. The HAS evolved from the Office of L. Ron Hubbard located in Phoenix, Arizona...
refuted at the time.
The Anderson Report
The final results of the Anderson Report
Anderson Report
The Anderson Report is the colloquial name of the report of the Board of Inquiry into Scientology, an official inquiry into the Church of Scientology conducted for the State of Victoria, Australia. It was written by Kevin Victor Anderson QC and published in 1965.-Background:In 1959, L...
in 1965 declared:
"The Board is not concerned to find that the scientology techniques are brainwashing techniques as practised, so it is understood, in some communist-controlled countries. Scientology techniques are, nevertheless, a kind of brainwashing... The astonishing feature of Scientology is that its techniques and propagation resemble very closely those set out in a book entitled Brain-washing, advertised and sold by the HASI."
Kenneth Goff and the American far right
Morris KominskyMorris Kominsky
Morris Kominsky was the author of The Hoaxers: Plain Liars, Fancy Liars and Damned Liars .-Biography:...
in his The Hoaxers: Plain Liars, Fancy Liars and Damned Liars (1970) attributes the authorship to a Rev. Kenneth Goff
Kenneth Goff
Kenneth Goff was a Christian Identity minister and anti-Communist crusader. He was the 1944 national chairman of Gerald L. K. Smith's Christian Youth for America. According to his biographical material, he was a member of the Communist Party of the United States of America from May 2, 1936, to...
(alias Oliver Kenneth Goff) of Englewood, Colorado
Englewood, Colorado
The city of Englewood is a Home Rule Municipality located in Arapahoe County, Colorado, United States. As of 2007, the city is estimated to have a total population of 32,532. Englewood is part of the Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Area. Englewood is located in the South Platte River Valley east of the...
, an assistant of Gerald L. K. Smith
Gerald L. K. Smith
Gerald Lyman Kenneth Smith was an American clergyman and political organizer, who became a leader of the Share Our Wealth movement during the Great Depression and later the Christian Nationalist Crusade...
. The entirety of chapter twelve is devoted to analysis of the text and the author's correspondence with others to determine the authenticity of the text or points within it, and other publications which make reference to it. Kominsky's copy of the book had an introduction by Goff, but he does not give the publication date, though one of the publications referencing Goff's introduction is dated 1956. Goff claimed the book came to him from the Communist Party.
Kominsky owned another copy published by the "Ultra-Rightist women of the Burbank, California
Burbank, California
Burbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States, north of downtown Los Angeles. The estimated population in 2010 was 103,340....
area who call themselves the American Public Relations Forum, Inc." That copy included an introduction by Charles Stickley and with additional items by Usher L. Burdick
Usher L. Burdick
Usher Lloyd Burdick was a member of the United States House of Representatives from North Dakota. He was the father of Quentin N. Burdick.-Early life and career:...
, claiming a publication date of 1955. Goff asserted Stickley plagiarized him, and that he had seen yet another publication which had done so. Nonetheless, the Goff version is replete with Hubbardisms, from 'Thinkingness' to 'Mental Image Picture' to 'PDH' for 'Pain Drug Hypnosis', plus all known Goff versions feature multiple references to 'Dianetics'.