Pseudology

The Art of Lying

When Catherine worked on Wall Street in the 1980s, she overheard a shocking conversation between two billionaire types about the entrainment technology and subliminal programming used in television. She immediately concluded that TV was something to be avoided.

For anyone who is still skeptical about TV’s dangers, we recommend Little Light Studios’ 90-minute documentary, Pseudology: The Art of Lying. A subscriber recently told us about the film, reporting that it shook their teenager “to the core” to such an extent that she immediately purchased a 1960s typewriter!

As Solari’s many interviews and materials on mind control make plain, the advertising and entertainment industries (and, though not mentioned in the documentary, the military-intelligence complex) have studied the brain extensively, refining their use of psychology and hypnosis to peddle products and—even more significantly—belief systems. Pseudology documents some of the fruits of this nefarious research, asking, “Is television a plot to turn grey matter into goo matter?” For example:

• In the name of “educational” viewing, many parents have been persuaded to put their babies in front of screens at an average age of four months; in 1970, screen time started (on average) at age four. The researchers interviewed in the film emphasize that children need to interact with humans, not screens, to develop healthy brains.
• Research has confirmed the “overstimulation hypothesis,” showing that prolonged exposure to rapidly sequenced images that “jump all over the place”—the hallmark of videos targeting the under-three demographic—preconditions the mind to expect high levels of stimulation and leads to inattention and risk-taking later in life.
• Television causes parts of the brain to “simply stop”—drawing viewers into a passive alpha brain-wave state within as little as 60 seconds and inactivating the frontal lobe that is the seat of spirituality, morality, and will. This is also the part of the brain that helps us distinguish between what is real and not real.
• According to the hypnotherapists interviewed in Pseudology, who describe hypnosis as being “as powerful as a drug,” no one is “unhypnotizable.”

The film also takes viewers on a tour of the exploding “neuro” fields of neuromarketing (so-called “consumer neuroscience”), neuroeconomics (which views psychology and economics as “complementary disciplines”), and neurocinema (the use of techniques like fMRI and EEG to help filmmakers “elicit preferred responses”).

Because Little Light Studios is a documentary company anchored in the Christian faith, Pseudology ends with profound observations about Hollywood’s propagation of “lies about God’s character” and efforts to “crowd out the voice of God.” Ultimately, they warn, it is important to be careful what you put into your mind.