Embarrassing Conspiracy Theories: Mind Control

Ever feel like someone else is controlling your mind?

Well, that simply could be the result of stress. Or maybe you have some psychological issues. Or maybe someone else really is controlling your mind...

Yes, there really are some people out there that really do believe that their minds are being controlled by someone else, and I'm not just talking about "brain washing" either (which is very real) but actual mind control, in which someone's mind is being directly controlled by an outside source (as oppose to brain washing, being more of an indirect control of another person's mind, and can be broken using therapy, or just an individual's own will power).

While there are multiple things in the world that people who claim to be victims of mind control (Target Individuals  or T.I. for short, as they tend to call themselves) claim that certain shadowy groups are using to execute this mind control, the two most common forms are telepathy, and radio waves.

Now the telepathy one is easy to explain: It doesn't exist.

There have been multiple studies to see whether or not telepathy is real, and all of those studies have shown that, despite being popular for comic books and science fiction novels, it is not real, and that we cannot control other people's thoughts and actions simply with our own minds.

While several governments have actually tried to use people who claimed to telepathic (or train people to become telepathic) for the use of espionage purposes (which includes the US government), most of the time these programs are abandoned simply because these programs produce no results, and become they are a big waste of time and money.

As for the claim that radio waves (in particular, extreme low frequency radio waves) can control a person's mind, this one also seems very highly unlikely that this would work as well (even if it could be proven to work in the first place).

For one thing, we are constantly being bombarded by radio waves from multiple sources (including natural sources), and they don't affect us one bit, most especially our minds. Also, all studies into ELF waves have shown that (despite popular belief by T.I.s, and other conspiracy theorists) they do not affect the human minds, otherwise it would be affecting all of us all the time because many things around us give off ELF waves (one of the most common being power lines).

Now despite the evidence that it's not even possible to control a person's mind (at least by the use of external sources) those that believe it is real also believe that such "attacks" can be blocked. Perhaps the most popular ways to block these alleged mind attacks is to wrap tin foil around your head (whom's origins may or may not be based on the Faraday cage).

Odds are this wouldn't work.

For one thing, most tinfoil hats only cover the top of the head and the forehead, so they would not give total protection. Another thing is that tinfoil hats most likely wouldn't be able to block telepathic attacks either, as telepathy most likely would be "something" other than radio waves. Also, there some studies that have suggested that tinfoil hats would more likely act like an antenna, rather than a shield. Studies that have shown that it could work (as long as it is well constructed) have been shown to only reduce radio waves getting to a targeted object (such as a radio), rather than eliminating them, and that only works if the metal construct isn't touching the antenna of said object.

Even if it was possible to control a person using radio waves or telepathy, it would be pretty hard to do in the first place due to the fact that you would have to know where the person was all the time, and target them so precisely that it wouldn't effect other people around, and then keep locked on that person (because people tend to move).

So you might be asking yourself "if mind control isn't real, then why do some people believe that their minds are being controlled, and that their thoughts are being read"?

There are two simple answers to this:

First, many people who believe in this are most likely very gullible, and are prone to mass hysteria (like believing that your mind can be controlled be the government).

Second, they could also be severally mentally ill, that if left untreated could cause them to have delusions that can cause a person to very seriously believe that their thoughts are being read, and that their minds are being controlled.

To put this article to a point, if you believe that your thoughts are being read, and that your mind is being controlled from an outside source, you should seriously consider seeking psychological help.