There are lots of different ways one could organize a curriculum around the topic of intentional, unconscious mind control.

One approach might summarize the views of influential writers in the field (e.g. Dale Carnegie, Robert Cialdini, …), so that each entry covers a given writer’s perspective over a range of themes or topics (personal relationships, sales and marketing, psychological mechanisms, ethical issues, …).

Another approach might organize a curriculum around those themes or topics, and pick and choose bits from various writers that bear on those themes and topics. So, a section on people skills might include a lot of Dale Carnegie’s principles, some elements from Cialdini’s work that are relevant, some bits from other authors, and so on. A section on sales and marketing tactics, or ethical issues, would pick and choose differently again.

Or one could analyze the topic from a scientific perspective, reviewing mind control strategies that have been empirically shown to work, and then move on to discuss different theoretical explanations of how and why the strategies work.

Or one could focus primarily on the ethical dimensions of the issue, reviewing persuasion tactics in different domains (interpersonal, sales and marketing, politics, etc.), and then discussing the ethical issues that arise in each of those domains.

Or one could work through the topic historically, starting with early influential writers and figures, and following historical developments in the art and science of persuasion, leading up to the present day.

In the midst of all these choices, it’s fortunate that on this topic there is a lot of overlap in the natural order of presentation, regardless of which organizational strategy I follow.

In other words, I’m going to hit on all these topics eventually, regardless of where we start.

Below is the tentative organizational spine of the course I’ll be developing here.

• People Skills — How to get people to like you
• Sales and Marketing Skills — How to get people to say “yes” to an offer
• Seduction Skills — How to attract a romantic or sexual partner
• Magic and Mind Reading Skills — How stage magicians and mentalists manipulate minds
• Confidence and the Con — How con artists successfully manipulate, deceive and defraud
• Persuasion in Advertising — How advertising campaigns create desire and demand
• Persuasion in Politics — How political campaigns influence how you vote
• Persuasion in the Internet Age — How Google and other internet forces influence how you think
• Power and Propaganda — A brief history of propaganda, how propaganda messages pervade all aspects of modern life, and its connection to power.
• Ethics of Persuasion — A critical review and analysis of how ethical issues related to persuasion and manipulation are understood by prominent figures within the field.

Let me say a few words about this selection of topics and how I’ve framed them.

1. My goal is mind control literacy. One can write a book-length review of any of these topics, but obviously that’s not a practical goal for us. What I’m shooting for is not a comprehensive understanding of everything there is to know about mind control. What I’m shooting for is mind control literacy — a working knowledge of how persuasion techniques are used, how they work, and some critical perspective on what to think about them. That is a practical goal that we can achieve in this course.

2. I want the content to be practically useful and accessible. The scientific and philosophical aspects of these topics are fascinating, and we’ll get to them, but first and foremost I want this material to be useful and accessible to non-academics. If a teenager comes to this material wanting some real insight into how to improve his or her social skills, or a businessperson comes wanting to learn some practical strategies for improving their sales, I want that content to be easily accessible and understandable.

3. I don’t want to “problematize” the content right away. Academics love the word “problematize”. It means “to make into or regard as a problem requiring a solution”. Ethically and philosophically, mind control is indeed a problem that begs for critical discussion. But I don’t want to adopt an overly critical stance at the outset. I want to give the persuaders, the marketers, the influencers, the advertisers, the propagandists, the pick-up-artists, the con artists, a platform to speak their mind. I want you, the reader, to see how these mind control experts view the world, how they understand the significance of what they’re doing. This makes for a clearer presentation, but it’s also is the right way to set up the later critical discussion that we want to have.

That said, I’m sure I’ll add my share of critical and theoretical digressions along the way. Sometimes it makes more sense to raise an issue or make a critical comment right when the topic comes up, when it’s fresh in your memory, rather than wait until the end of the course to raise it again.

Okay, I hope you’re excited to get started! I know I am.