Once a person perceives how manipulation works, most are amazed that they were unable to see it previously—when it was happening.
Following the attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush and a number of government officials, began manipulating the American public. The way they did it was by deliberately repeating phrases, such as “terrorists” and “weapons of mass destruction.” Every newscast held these phrases. If you knew (as advertisers do) that repeating words or phrases over and over again causes our subconscious mind to begin to take what is being said as “truth” and it sets the framework for beliefs we carry there, then it would have been obvious to you that we were all being “set up” for those officials to make big changes, without the American people protesting.
Human beings run their lives on the basis of the beliefs they hold, which are securely and firmly stored in the subconscious mind. Most often, we don’t even know what those beliefs are. We collected them “along the way” as we were growing up, encountering the outside world, and having experiences with others. A friend of mine from years ago, for example, believed if she got wet during her time away from home, she would get sick. Research has shown that being wet—even when standing in freezing temperatures—does not make people get sick. But beliefs are so powerful, we create them. My friend got wet in a downpour one day, announced that meant she would get sick, and promptly developed a cold.
It stands to reason, then, that when people elected as our national leaders begin messing with the beliefs of the populace; they are up to the “no good” of manipulating us.
And so we can no longer get onto a plane without first removing our belt and shoes, running our personal computers and phones through the conveyor belt, and making sure we take no liquids from outside the airport onto the plane. Observing people obediently following the “Homeland Security” rules at the airport is sometimes amazingly funny. People disrobe in front of people they have never seen before, an act that most of them would not do even in their private lives! Years later, the American people are still willing to go through these machinations in the belief that we are being kept safe.
Why do we call this manipulation?
Manipulation is about energy. (Actually, everything is about energy. We’re just looking at one part of the human relationship with energy here.)
All human beings need energy. We get it in the form of attention. The principle is: What we pay attention to we feed energy, and tend to become.” Manipulation occurs when one person gets another to give his/her attention away to others in the form they want it.
In everyday life, whatever we tell others about concerning our lives is the way we get attention. Some people get attention for being victims. Others for being wealthy. Others get attention for being helpless, for being loving, for giving, for making good grades, and for being poor. Through a combination of what we believe, and what we have learned is a way that will get us attention for ourselves, human beings get attention. We all direct the attention of others to the attention and energy we need; and most people comply with our “request.”
There are some people, however, who have such a need for energy—or control—that they squeeze the attention and energy they believe they need from others, insisting that those others give the energy in the way the manipulator wants it.
People who manipulate, in fact, have an uncanny ability to assess what are the most vitally important things to others, and use those as their tool for squeezing the energy they want out of their victim.
To return to the 9-11 example, Bush and government officials knew a big attack on American soil would strike great fear in Americans, who up to that point had been miraculously free of large-scale public attacks. So fear was capitalized on to get the American people to behave (give energy) in the form desired. Americans gave up their individual freedoms (in exchange for “homeland security”) and made little protest when a war was started in Iraq. What a relief for them, frightened out of their wits, to have the government keep them safe, and have the bad guys like Saddam Hussein killed!
This is just one example; yet it is important to see how people who manipulate use their victim’s own issues against them, so they can obtain the obedience and energy desired.