Page 62 - Lunacy and the Age of Deception
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The Eagle Has Landed
Like any good piece of propaganda, the Apollo Moon landings needed to appeal to the fundamental
biases and emotions of men. Indeed, this was not your average deception of the masses being carried
out. It was nearly unprecedented in scale and audacity. To persuade humanity that the American
government’s space program was able to send men to the Moon and return them to Earth
successfully, would require extraordinary measures. The amount of propaganda would need to be
massive in order to overcome the incredulity of rational men and women regarding what was being
suggested.
Chapter 4 of Edward Bernays’ book Propaganda is titled THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PUBLIC
RELATIONS. The chapter begins with the following statements (emphasis added).
The systematic study of mass psychology revealed to students the potentialities of invisible
government of society by manipulation of the motives which actuate man in the group. Trotter and
Le Bon, who approached the subject in a scientific manner, and Graham Wallas, Walter Lippmann
and others who continued with searching studies of the group mind, established that the group has
mental characteristics distinct from those of the individual, and is motivated by impulses and
emotions which cannot be explained on the basis of what we know of individual psychology. So the
question naturally arose: If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not
possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing it?
The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible...
[Source: Edward Bernays, Propaganda, 1928]
The group mind should not be thought of as rational. It is largely emotional. Consequently, it can be
manipulated through means of emotional stimuli. Speaking further of the character of the group
mind, Bernays writes,
Trotter and Le Bon concluded that the group mind does not think in the strict sense of the word. In
place of thoughts it has impulses, habits and emotions.
