How To Protect Your Brain & Organization From Manipulators

Executing spies is not the only method to protect your brain (even if desirable). I received an interesting request today from one of Alvarism’s many readers. He is concerned with counterintelligence operations:

“I’m really enjoying your great blogs! You have such talent for uncovering vital hidden information.

Which is why I’m asking for your help now in finding links to [redacted] group strategy techniques that was discovered and circulated by [redacted], some time ago. I’m pretty sure it was a video explaining a meeting strategy that showed how to manage and dilute any opposition…

If you can remember anything like this I’d really appreciate if you could let me know so I may share it with some dear friends who are worried about what’s happening in their [organization].”

Counter-Subversion is a Significant Aspect of Alvarism

In subversion, nobody is invulnerable, most people are unwitting putty in the hands of forces unseen, and a few are hard targets. I am a hard target. There are private reasons for that.

I don’t need to rewrite these articles, the authors did a fine job:

The Strategy of Subversive Conflict by Adam Elkus

Preventing the State’s Infiltration of Social Movements by Indubio Pro Reo

Reo approaches this from an anarchist’s perspective. In truth, the methods he refers to are used much more by nonprofits, NGOs, and non-state actors to disrupt and weaken their opponents. States use the methods to be sure, but subversion is not exclusive to governmental authorities.

Read those articles if you want to learn some basics. Three things the authors do not discuss can also protect you from psyops: religion, romance, and virtue.

Proper Religion Protects You from Psyops

I say proper, because much of religious practice is improper. It does not serve the conscious intention of its practitioner. It serves their unconscious deficiencies. The godless are the most vulnerable. In the third Alvarism book (unpublished), religion is detailed.

For now, suffice to say that the godless desperately pursue religious needs in ways that are haphazard, chaotic, and ineffective. They are not just tearing down established religious traditions, they are replacing them with new and malformed ones, while claiming to be atheist or agnostic.

In reality, they worship entertainers, politicians, and journalists like religious people worship divinity.

They chase ghosts, vampires, Harry Potter magic, aliens, orcs, dwarves, elves, fairies, drugs, alcohol, sex, vices – anything to fill the void of wonder and meaning in their lives. And while they play the part of a wind-up robot aimlessly crashing into every object on the floor, life passes them by and each crash leaves them more desperate to find enduring connection and meaning.

But many religious people also play the part of wind-up robot. Cult-like and magic-thinking corrupts their religious practice. They use their religion as a godless person uses a psychologist. They say and do absurd things that violate harmonious, productive, and constructive life. The spiritual meaning and connection they find is twisted, which is obvious from their ensuing poverty, chaos, dissociation, and isolation.

Then there are those with a proper religious practice. They consciously choose their faith, and it is a good choice, with strong capability for inspiration, harmony, and productivity. It enhances their life and protects their minds from those who would play on their ego, their vices, their temptations, and their ignorance. It solidifies their priority of virtue, inspiring them to improve themselves morally with each experience in life.

Suggesting how to improve religious devotion is beyond the scope of this article. But if your religious practice seems more like the prior than the latter, it needs some adaptation if you want to become resilient to subversion. Turning a person’s ego and visions against themselves is an easy thing to do when the person has improper religion.

Proper Romance (and Chastity) Protects You from Subversion

In the process of a failed attempt to collect on me, a spy tried numerous times to get me drunk, and even offered prostitution. Of course, a supposed “friend” offering these vices to a vulnerable target would easily succeed. He got very frustrated that he couldn’t play on any vices to manipulate me.

The sexual and family motives (for those with children and spouses) are strong vulnerabilities. Presuming that you are not living vicariously through your children, or lover, and that you respect yourself, and that they enhance your life as companions without eroding your life like a parasite, you are in a good position to control your primal drives.

A person is vulnerable, who is sexually anxious, or has dysfunctional relations with their family, spouse, and children. Let's not presume though that an idyllic family veneer is a great indicator. These dysfunctions often hide behind white picket fences, smiles, flower beds, dogs, "happy" children. Promiscuous people are particularly vulnerable. Read Aristotle’s treatment of friendship and pleasure in Ethics, and the book of Corinthians in the Bible to harden yourself against relational aggression, and some forms of psychological aggression.

There are good reasons why a majority of both men and women cannot attain successful relationships, and lasting marriages. It is better to avoid those people who will create more problems than they solve in close quarters. When subversion emerges, improper family and romance becomes an enormous vulnerability to the target’s efficacy.

Experts Will Not Protect You

While I do suggest reading the links and researching even more concepts in subversion, it’s not enough. Relational and psychological aggression is much like physical aggression. We drill our soldiers because classes are not enough. You can teach a person how to defend themselves in a class. They won’t learn. They need to get punched in the face to learn. They need to bleed.

They need to experience the anxiety control response hundreds of times. Only then, will they master controlled aggression and the split-second muscle memory required to defend themselves when attacked. American Football is a great sport to drill controlled aggression at a young age. Every warrior should play full-contact sports as a child.

Defense against relational and psychological aggression require practice as well. Have you ever had a person tell you how to feel, or what attitude you should have about a particular experience? They mean well. An untrained person has all sorts of reactions in their mind, anxieties, emotions. I have none. I immediately perceive how the person is trying to manipulate the way I think about the world and myself. I filter it through my knowledge of propaganda and fallacy. I take only hard evidence, and correctly formed logical statements that they present to me. I process it immediately for its universal value. I rarely let the person know what I took and what I discarded.

Master Romance, Master Counter-Subversion

How can a man of great achievement detect a woman who is trying to use him for ulterior motives? One strategy would be to present himself without wealth. That would be ineffective. Their reaction at the sight of wealth is useful to observe as well.

But the most useful observation for that particular inquiry is not so overt. The best thing to do is to inspire situations in which the woman’s virtues of patience, zeal, and frugality are challenged. If she generally feels entitled to something-for-nothing, she uses people and takes more than she gives.

If she asks people to do things that she could do herself, she’s a user. If she refuses to do simple things, because “she doesn’t like it,” or “it’s not who she is,” she will be telling your children the same thing when she is supposed to be helping to raise them. Alternatively, she’ll do the mundane things as a mother, but she will be miserable in the process and spread her misery to the entire household. Passive aggression will follow. And from the low-virtue woman, conflict and misery will spread. She will gaslight aggression from the husband. Then he will wonder if he is the bad guy.

A woman of sufficient patience, zeal, and frugality, will silently and quietly do what is called for in any scenario, solve more problems than she creates, and be eager to take personal responsibility rather than run from it. She does not demand decision making, spending, or disposal power over anything without responsibility and justification that she is best equipped to exercise it. Power without justification is tyranny. People who want money and creature comforts without contributing great value of their own are social tyrants. Social tyrants generally have very few skills, shallow knowledge, and nothing of much value to offer, because they have spent their time consuming the value of others, instead of producing for the benefit of others.

Be True to Yourself, Practice the Seven Virtues

These indirect assessments may seem complex – and they are. With practice they occur as subconsciously as a warrior defending himself reflexively from physical attacks. If you or your organization are infiltrated by subversive elements, the best way to protect everyone is very simple. Be true. If your organization is stable and virtuous, it can be rattled, but it will stand strongly.

A man who is a true gentleman, cannot be manipulated by a corrupt woman. If a shrew tries to drag him down, she grows weary because she can’t get under his skin. If a promiscuous woman tries to turn his sexual drive against himself, she cannot, because his honor is more valuable than cheap thrills.

A man who has nothing to hide, can be spied upon, and the spies will acquire nothing useful with which to blackmail him.

Virtue is the strongest armor against the throngs of twisted people who wittingly or unwittingly employ relational and psychological aggression. And all subversion at its core, uses those types of aggression.

The authors of the articles I linked focus on the mechanics and techniques of subversion. We cannot study human beings as mechanistic animals, absent values. Yes, it is helpful to understand tactics of subversion. No, it is not the best defense.

If you notice social or organizational dysfunction, help strengthen each other in virtue, and render the manipulators powerless. Make yourself a hard target. In organizations and business, put people in leadership who are hard targets. An organization with low-virtue leaders is vulnerable.