Are You a Mind Slave?

Steve Gillman

We think we control our minds, but Beyond Mental Slavery shows you just how often our minds actually control us. We are under the influence of ideas that are not really ours, biases we're not fully aware of, and programs that cause us to react in ways that have nothing to do with our conscious goals or desires - and may even actively sabotage them. This is true to some degree for all of us.

The various parts of your mind tell you things, even command and demand. You're persuaded by this internal dialog and you obey these thoughts, imagining that the whole process is who you are. That identification is a mistake, one made easily and daily throughout the world by billions of us. Research, stories and examples that you can verify from your own experience, are used throughout the book to demonstrate just how easy it is to be ordered around by the thought processes you believe you direct for your own purposes.

Corrective actions or "escape plans" are laid out for you, always starting with awareness as the first step, followed by more specific things you can do to free your thinking. This is a powerful book about many of the ways your mind is limited and even corrupted by processes that are not always so obvious - not obvious until pointed out, that is. You'll often find yourself reflecting on your own thoughts and feelings as you read the examples, and you are invited to do so, to verify both the claims made and the solutions suggested.

Beyond Mental Slavery will bring you to a new understanding of how your mind really works. You'll see the problems inherent in your ordinary thinking and decision making, and then you'll see how to escape many of the limitations these impose. Work with the ideas and tips here, and you'll increase the power of your mind, but, more importantly, you'll also increase it's true usefulness.

Readers Comments:

I love "Beyond Mental Slavery". Wish I could bundle up all of your wisdom and put it in a box with a ribbon and present it to many people I know. - Nancy K

I have found Gillman's book to be a very good little primer on clear thinking, and if the ideas in this work were followed, the entire world would be a better place to live, and we would be much better able to think clearly and unravel the knots that life presents us. - Richard P.

Beyond Mental Slavery
A Guide to Breaking Free and Thinking Clearly

Excerpts

The Worship of Reason - This page has the first dozen paragraphs of Chapter One, in which I take a look at why it is a mistake to follow our reasoning blindly. It starts with a true story about a man who wanted to drop nuclear bombs on Afghanistan because that's where the logic of his beliefs led him - and where he followed.

Thinking and Ego - This excerpt is from Chapter Four; Ego Masquerading As Self. We easily see when other people's egos get in the way of good decisions or clear thinking, but the process is not always so visible in ourselves. Consider the Great Toilet Paper Debate, for example (you'll have to go read the excerpt)...

Conformity and Cultural Conditioning - From Chapter Six, this excerpt addresses our urge to conform and out tendency to allow the beliefs and opinions of others to influence our thinking. Wait until you read about the experiments done by Solomon Asch. You will be shocked.

Other Pages:

About Steve Gillman - A bit of biographical information about myself.

Table of Contents - The chapter list and a short excerpt from the introduction of the book.

Metaphorical Thinking - It is more common and more problematic than you might realize.