Jedi Mind Tricks

“These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”  Classic, everyone knows this line from the first, um, I mean fourth Star Wars. It was the first that time we saw “Jedi mind tricks” demonstrated but not the last. (Unless you’re a 10 year old, then the first time was Qui- Gon Jinn in the first episode.) In the movie it is a trick that a Jedi can use on the “weak minded” and it doesn’t seem to work on those heavily motivated by money or worldly power.  In the real world, entertainment hypnotists will start their demonstration by telling you that only highly intelligent people can be hypnotized.  I suspect that many times that suggestion causes some people to be more open to becoming hypnotized because they like to think that it’s a sign of how smart they are.  Either notion is ego based. Either you are too smart to fall for a Jedi mind trick or so smart you can be hypnotized.  However people like Darren Brown in the UK have shown time and time again that many people, regardless of their IQ, can be manipulated to think, believe, say, or do, all sorts of things.  Our brains are naturally wired to perceive and process information outside of our normal awareness.  There is some benefit to that and it could be part of what fuels our “intuition”.  However, because we are processing information that we are not even always aware of, our minds can be manipulated by those who have studied how to do that. 

Entertainers, advertisers, politicians, psychologists, and some spiritualists, to name a few, have branches of study involving manipulation of the human mind and human emotions. Using “Time Line Therapy” techniques a person could even create seemingly real memories of events that never took place or block out very real events from their memory.  Perhaps there may be therapeutic benefits to such manipulation of the mind but it doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to see how easily it could be misused and could be dangerous. 

N.L.P. techniques can range from being as harmless and useful as just building good rapport in a job interview, or as dangerous as changing a persons religious belief system; as Darren Brown once demonstrated in a video that can be found on you-tube.  Even when someone doesn’t study the entire field of Neuro Linguistics, they might learn enough to help them sell a car or win people over in a political debate.

We need to be aware that there are very real studies and applications to controlling the human mind and emotions.  There is a myth that people can’t be persuaded to do something that would violate their conscience.  A look at examples of what people have been persuaded to do or believe is enough to prove this false.  We need to know that under certain circumstances anyone could be persuaded to do things they would not do under normal circumstances.  Our intuition can be flawed and manipulated. That’s not to say that intuition is bad or you can’t trust your feelings. It is just to be aware that we should “Test everything, and hold onto what is good.”   Test against scripture, against human reason, and against 2,000 year old truths that the church has guarded. The church is led by flesh and blood human beings who can just as easily be manipulated and fall, but we stand on the promises of Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. 

1 Thesalonians 5:21 but test them all; hold on to what is good,

Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

Jerimiah 17:9  The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?