Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism
Lifton’s work remains the most rigorous analysis ever produced on how individuals lose their capacity for autonomous thought.
He outlines eight psychological criteria that appear in every system seeking absolute control — from political regimes to religious groups to spiritual communities.
The value of this book in your ecosystem is direct:
it exposes the architecture behind the collapse of sovereignty — the exact mechanisms that make people worship forms, leaders, archetypes, or “spiritual truths” at the expense of their inner authority.
Lifton gives you the vocabulary to describe how subtle distortions occur long before any overt manipulation appears.
