The use of an array of tactics to baffle the perception in conflict is not new, nor is the strategy confined to the human species. Predators who exploit the perceptual deficiencies of prey are common in nature. As human hunters wear camouflage, spread scents and simulate game calls to imitate prey animals, Paussid beetles forge chemical signals, blinding ant species they prey on to their presence among them in the nest. A famous human group employed similar tactics. Hasan ibn Sabah’s Assassins.

Ibn Sabah allegedly learned his art of mind control from priests of the mysteries in Egypt, but whatever the origin of the tactics, the Assassins used hypnotic induction, symbolism, stage magic and drugs create a belief system which insured 100 % loyalty and instant compliance with leader’s instructions. Nation state rulers have great difficulty securing large numbers of people willing to die on command. Hasan al Sabah’s Assassins prospered for 300 years and spread their agents through the middle east because they could create adherents who would raise families, live amongst the opponent for 30 years, and remain loyal and instantly obedient to leader’s orders – even when ordered to commit assassinations certain to result in capture and execution.

When the Assassin’s fortress at Alamut (in what is now Iran) was finally captured by the Mongols, bringing 300 + years of terror to an end with the decapitation of leadership. The assassins’ tens of thousands of agents and adherents scattered through the ME – they did not leave the extortion blackmail and terror business – instead they reconstituted themselves under new leadership and continued operation under a new name – the Ismailis. The Assassins are known to have shared their tactics and MK technology with other groups who shared their antinomian beliefs.

Whatever the details of development, groups today employing the Assassin’s mind control tactics command close to 100% loyalty and instant compliance with leaders’ instructions. Many groups and organizations, religious sects, cults and intelligence agencies have obtained versions of the MK technology and have worked diligently to improve it. Such tactics employed on individuals or small groups are called “trauma-based” mind control because they incorporate physical or emotional (real or imagined) trauma as an instructional aid. In the public space, legacy media uses images and subliminal embedding deliver trauma inducing content below the perceptual threshold in both advertising and “entertainment” media content.