Brainwashing, Conspiracy Theories, and the Death Angel
Why we can't always trust our brains
I love books the most (duh), but at times I’m an all-around media junkie. If I had my way, I would pump words into my eyeballs and earholes day and night (and call it “learning”).
When you consume a lot of ideas, a fun thing occasionally happens—the books and shows and podcasts triangulate, thematically speaking, and you feel for a fleeting moment that you’ve unlocked a secret of the universe.
One such convergence happened the week my husband and I watched the series Midnight Mass (on Netflix). To calm myself before bed (the show is basically a waking nightmare), one evening I coincidentally watched the “Brainwashing” episode of The Mind Explained (also on Netflix). All this at the same time I was reading Suggestible You by Erik Vance, to whom I’d been introduced by this episode of the On Being podcast.
Surprise! I soon found myself taking a deep dive into the psychosocial mechanisms behind mind control.
I used to think “brainwashing” only happened in, say, North Korea or to tortured POWs. But in the digital age, when anyone can have a platform for idea amplification (zero credentials required, insanity and extremism preferred) and where online echo chambers can be formed (a) in private spaces and (b) unconsciously, low-key brainwashing is happening everywhere. In 2022, conspiracy theories are as common as a dirty face mask in a parking lot.
I learned some things. Thought reform works by (first) eroding trust and (second) reprogramming the now-gullible brain with new, often extreme information. In populations where trust has already declined (say, 2022 America), half the work of brainwashing is already done.
Reeducation toward extremism is most effective when paired with fear, trauma, or any other kind of vulnerability. So a person who (a) doesn’t trust authorities (i.e. politicians, journalists, government organizations) AND (b) feels afraid (because of, say, covid) is highly susceptible to being brainwashed. (Of course, this isn’t how they’d see it or what they’d call it.)
When we are afraid, we look for clear, uncomplicated fixes to soothe our anxieties. It can feel good to blame an overwhelming, nebulous fear on a single person, institution, or political party. Blame really cuts through the moral fog and, in the process, offers a discrete target for our frustrations.
If I’m afraid that covid restrictions are going to screw up my kids, for example, it would make me feel more in control to express that as anger toward their school administrators than to sit helplessly in my own panic. Humans prefer the concrete nature of bashing a principal or president to wrestling with complexity or admitting that, just maybe, there are no good solutions at all.
This is not to say sometimes principals and presidents don’t deserve criticism. Helping refine procedures and policies is useful; approaching dissenters as enemies is not.
So what does any of this have to do with Midnight Mass? As a rule, I don’t watch anything “horror” or even horror-adjacent. But the premise of the Netflix show intrigued me enough to make me break my own rule—under the condition that my husband never leave the room and all lights remained on.
The premise that intrigued me was this: a small town in a haze of moral confusion, where the lines between right and wrong were becoming ever blurrier. No longer was it enough to go to church and be polite; suddenly these unassuming people were dealing with cosmic forces: angels and demons, salvation and damnation, life and death.
It turns out the scariest thing about Midnight Mass has nothing to do with jump scares or even the unfortunate scene when a man chows down on another man’s brain. What really makes the series “horror” is watching good people made evil by their own righteous convictions.
Usually folks have good intentions: they want to protect their loved ones or stand up for their principles. Sometimes bad people are just average people who’ve been convinced they were specially chosen to deliver a message to all the otherwise blind-and-doomed people around them. (See all the elements of brainwashing in there?)
On this brainwashing occasion, the medium is nothing less than (the) gospel. Throughout the series, characters quote the Bible to justify support of the (murderous) angel who has come to town. Is this the right thing (according to freaking BEV) or the wrong thing (according to clear eyes, full hearts, ILY)?
Well, when asked whether the show’s winged creature was in fact angel or demon, show creator Mike Flanagan responded,
“The angel very much represents a mirror for us. … He doesn’t seem to have any complex plan or real personality. It’s just a thing that does what it does. When it comes to fundamentalism and fanaticism, it isn’t something that necessarily comes to us with a well-thought-out plan or an ideology. What it does is it parrots back to us our worst ideas, in some cases. It uses our own voices.”
Hmmm. Sounds a lot to me like most politicians, self-help gurus, and the worst conspiracy theories du jour. And I’m not saying religious institutions always brainwash; I’m saying they sometimes do—and the fact that these institutions specifically hold so much power over our beliefs makes them uniquely powerful in this regard. [See: Scientology, Jonestown, etc etc.]
Anyway, Midnight Mass is worth watching and a timely reminder that almost everyone who does horrible things is convinced they are actually doing good. Flanagan again (agan?):
“I’m fascinated by how our beliefs shape how we treat each other. Looking at politics and the world today, so many of us are behaving based on the belief that God is on our side, and that God dislikes the same people we do.”
Values and convictions are, of course, important. Where we get into trouble, apparently, is our insistence on absolutism (an insistence that becomes ever more urgent as we become more afraid). Religion-gone-bad can offer up the most tempting version of absolutism, not only that you are capital-R-Right but that even God agrees. This is the ultimate ace-up-one’s-sleeve, is it not? “Welcome to God’s Army,” says the priest in Midnight Mass. “We’re going to do great things.” Convinced of their own rightness, humans (even Christian humans) are capable of some pretty messed-up things.1
Finally: Suggestible You, the subtitle for which is “The Brain’s Curious Ability to Deceive, Transform, and Heal.” Raised a Christian Scientist, Erik Vance’s family forbade visits to doctors, relying instead on the power of prayer to heal disease and injuries. As an adult, Vance is torn. He had seen dangerous outcomes from the practices of Christian Scientists firsthand, but he had also seen what might have been miracles. In this book, he explores the physical, bodily realities behind the placebo effect, citing neurologic advances that suggest belief actually can heal.
There’s a reason the topic of brainwashing is easy fodder for horror. As a nice counterpoint to the terrifying potential of thought reform, Vance offers a more optimistic possibility for channeling brainpower.
If only Vance had gotten to Bev before the “Holy Spirit” did.
If you’re interested in more brainwashy type things, here are some other fascinating reads/listens:
The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill (podcast)
The Handmaid’s Tale or The Orphan Master’s Son (books)
Midsommar (film)
Jesus Camp (documentary)