The CIA, MKUltra & The Patty Hearst Case: How Protect Yourself From The Mind Control Techniques Being Used Today

Mayim Bialik's Breakdown

Mayim Bialik

Mental Health, Society & Culture, Wellness, Health & Fitness, Comedy, Thebigbangtheory, Spirituality, Selfimprovement, Mentalhealth

4.7 • 5.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 July 2025

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What if you could be persuaded to confess to a crime you didn’t commit—or believe an identity that was manufactured for you? Harvard historian and sociologist Dr. Rebecca Lemov (author of The Instability of Truth: Brainwashing, Mind Control, and Hyper-Persuasion) explores how the manipulation of belief has shaped modern society from Cold War psychology to today’s social media. Mayim and Jonathan discuss the case of Leonard Kyle, who claimed the government implanted devices in his brain… and turns out, it was true! They deep dive into the psychological transformation of Patty Hearst and why her brainwashing defense was rejected and how government experiments like MK-Ultra still influence policy today. Plus, understand the rise of hyper-persuasion in the digital age and how social media can manipulate your emotions through harvesting your trauma using targeted algorithms. Learn how to spot the signs of mind control in abusive relationships and why false confessions are more common than you'd think. Whether you’re a fan of cults, psychology, digital ethics or government conspiracy theories, this episode is a mind-bending journey into how belief, identity, and freedom have transformed in ways we barely recognize.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Can you talk a little bit about why someone would say,
0:03.3	I killed her, I robbed that bank?
0:06.5	Why would someone admit to something if they didn't do it?
0:11.0	The super weapon of mind control.
0:15.0	By the 1960s, the communists had the secret weapon.
0:18.5	There was a great deal of effort made to reproduce the weapon,
0:22.2	to understand the dynamics of whatever had happened.
0:25.0	To the 21 POWs who refused repatriation to the United States, it was seen as defensively necessary.
0:33.2	So we need to know how they did it and we need to defend against it.
0:36.1	So this is why there was a vast program in the military to create survival, evasion, resistance, and escape training.
0:42.6	And that's where they started systematically exposing military personnel to the same brainwashing.
0:49.1	The military sent a memo to any troops who had been POW saying, don't comment on the Patty Hurst case.
0:56.7	The case of Patty Hurst, a very, very famous case of brainwashing, for which she was never exonerated.
1:03.1	After being brainwashed, she was held in a closet. She was abused. She was held prisoner.
1:09.2	How total can control become?
1:11.7	Could you have someone so abandoned themselves that they would be actually an unrecognizable new creation?
1:24.8	Hi, I'm I'm Biolic.
1:26.5	I'm Jonathan Cohen.
1:45.8	And welcome to a special MBB reports about the instability of truth. What do you know to be true? What do you think is true? And what if I were to tell you that you are much more easily controllable than you think you are? We're going to be talking to Rebecca Lemove, the author of The Instability of Truth, Brainwashing, Mind Control, and Hyper Persuasion. She's a professor of the
1:50.3	history of science and a historian at Harvard. And we're going to be talking about how there is a theme
1:56.7	that runs through all of these categories that will blow your mind.
2:02.3	You think that you know what is true.
	...

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