What exactly is mind control?

TW: Mention of torture, TBMC and cults/religion

Mind control (also known as brainwashing, coercive persuasion or thought control) refers to the way some people have tried to control the beliefs and behaviours of others.

It is a process where a group or individual uses methods to persuade other to change their basic beliefs and values. A group or individual may use unethical methods to persuade others to believe and do what the manipulator(s) want. It often harms the person being manipulated.

The term has been applied to any tactic, psychological or otherwise, which undermines (damages) an individual's control over their own thinking, behaviour, emotions or decision making.

Theories of brainwashing and of mind control were originally developed to explain how totalitarian regimes appeared to succeed systematically in indoctrinating prisoners of war through propaganda and torture techniques.

After the Korean War, mind control theories shifted in focus from politics to religion. From the 1960s an increasing number of youths started to come into contact with new religious movements (NRM). Some who converted suddenly adopted beliefs and behaviors that differed greatly from those of their families and friends; in some cases they neglected or broke contact with their loved ones. Those against cults explained these sudden and seemingly dramatic religious conversions as due to mind control. The media was quick to follow suit, and social scientists sympathetic to the anti-cult movement, who were usually psychologists, developed more sophisticated models of brainwashing. While some psychologists were receptive to these theories, sociologists were for the most part skeptical of their ability to explain conversion to NRMs.

Source: Wikipedia "Mind control"