Mind Manipulation. Dr. Haha Lung
masters have used the metaphor of “The City of Nine Gates” when speaking of the mental vulnerabilities of the body.
These “nine gates” are the nine bodily openings (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, urethra, and anus) through which we interact with the world (that is, how we receive information, express ourselves, experience pleasure, etc.).
A foe can thus be overcome by breaching one of these gates. For example, false gossip and propaganda attacks his ear gate; a sexual ploy can be used to attack his (urethra) sex gate.2
Ninja mind-manipulation experts employed a two-step strategy when attacking the mind of an enemy—first discerning and discovering, then distorting and destroying.
Step 1: Discerning an enemy’s mind-set (overall attitude toward life, personal beliefs, etc.) and then discovering the inherent weaknesses they carry through the use of satsujin-jutsu allows us to prepare a mind strategy for invading a foe’s mind castle.3
Step 2: After discerning an enemy’s mind-set and discovering his inherent weaknesses, we then set about distorting our enemy’s version of reality, figuratively and literally destroying his trust in the world and his confidence in himself.
Techniques designed to distort an enemy’s view of the world around him (destroying his trust of others, undermining his self-confidence, etc.) are collectively known as kiai-shin-jutsu (shouting into another’s mind).
Satsujin-Jutsu
In order to gain insight into another’s mind (indeed, into our own minds) we must examine two factors:
First, we must explore the role nature (genetics, gender, the time and circumstance of our birth) plays in our overall make-up.
Second, we must examine the nurture factors in our lives (such as our birth order, our family relationships, and childhood trauma).
Master manipulators—from medieval ninja to modern cult leaders—are adroit at discerning and then distorting the part nature and nurture play in the overall make-up of their victims. Ninja sennin (mind masters) adopted mind-manipulation tactics from a variety of sources in addition to developing many unique mind-bending techniques of their own, each of which will be discussed at length later in this book.
However, at this point, a brief introduction to these tactics and techniques is in order:
Jujushin
A concept shinobi sennin adapted from Shingon Buddhism. Jujushin identifies “10 minds,” 10 levels of understanding and functioning into which human beings can be categorized.
Discerning the jujushin level at which another person is operating at any given time gives us great insight into the mind and motivations of that person.
Ekkyo
These are divination methods that allow us to determine a victim’s birth order and examine his interactions with others, especially close relatives. This allows us to attack an enemy by psychologically “cutting at the edges” of his world, that is,undermining his confidence by eroding his comfort zone.
Junishi-Do-Jutsu
Employs the ancient art of Chinese astrology to determine a person’s overall temperament as well as his weakest time of the day, when he is most susceptible to physical attack and mental manipulation.
Having discerned an individual’s overall modus operandi, having discovered his innate weaknesses, ninja sennin then deployed a variety of kiai-shin-jutsu tactics and techniques designed to distort the victim’s world and eventually destroy him.
Kiai-Shin-Jutsu
Kiai-shin-jutsu tactics and techniques directly attack the intended victim psychologically by “shouting” into his mind. Examples include:
In-Yo-Jutsu
These tactics are designed to unbalance an opponent, to sow doubt and distrust in his mind.
In-yo is the Japanese version of the Taoist concept of yin-yang (balance). The theory behind all in-yo tactics is to throw an opponent off balance by making him doubt himself and distrust others and to pull him from a sure-footed black-and-white way of looking at the world into a slippery-slope “gray area” where his trust in others and confidence in self begin to falter and flag.
Amettori-Jutsu (A Man of Straw)
Encompasses all tactics and techniques of deception. The name comes from the ploy of dressing up a scarecrow to make an enemy think it is a real sentry or soldier.
Gojo-Goyoku (Five Element Theory)
This was derived from the Chinese pseudo-science of wu-hsing, which teaches that all reality (including actions and attitudes) is composed of five basic forces: earth, air, fire, water, and void. In all things and all times, one of these elements is dominant. Each element has a corresponding element in opposition to it. When gojo-goyoku is specifically applied to emotions it is referred to as The Five Weaknesses or The Five Feelings.
Jomon-Jutsu
Consists of the use of special words and phrases designed to affect an individual’s emotional stability, such as words evoking fear, lust, or patriotism.
Yugen-Shin-Jutsu (Mysterious Mind)
Uses various methods of hypnotism and subliminal suggestion to influence and control the minds of others.
Kyonin-No-Jutsu
Plays upon a person’s superstitions, ranging from his belief in voodoo to believing that getting caught out in the rain causes illness.
ENDNOTES
1
Lung, Haha. The Ancient Art of Strangulation. Boulder, Colorado: Paladin Press, 1995.
2
Lung, Haha. Assassin! Secrets of the Cult of Assassins. Boulder, Colorado: Paladin Press, 1997.
3
If you think of yourself as a castle, the physical walls are your actual body and its innermost locked and guarded rooms are your mind. The gates, windows, and other openings allow others to spy on what is going on inside the castle and to enter that stronghold by stealth.
In his book Street Ninja, Dirk Skinner says that the more you know about how the human body is put together, the easier it is to take it apart.
The same holds true for the human mind.
The more we understand about the basic functioning of the human brain—how it “sees” the world around it, how it processes and stores information—the easier it is for us to guard the frontiers of our own minds while successfully mounting a campaign against the minds of our enemies.
HOW THE BRAIN SEES
The brain sees and then stores information, even the most complex of information, as simple picture-symbols. This holds true whether the brain is taking in information only through the eyes or through one of the other senses—hearing, smell, taste, or touch.
Try this experiment: Ask people to describe a spiral staircase. After searching for words to describe the staircase, observe how they inevitably draw pictures (symbols) of it in the air with their hands.
Now ask someone, “How many sides does a pyramid have?” Most people will say “three,” correcting themselves only after you point out that a triangle has three sides, a three-dimensional pyramid, five. When you say “pyramid,” your friend’s brain hears “triangle” since the brain stores the memory of a pyramid (complex) behind the picture-symbol of a triangle (simple) in the “things that remind me of a triangle” file.
Consider this: “The United States of America” is a vast and complex notion. The concept of “U.S.A.” incorporates such subconcepts as “liberty” and “the pursuit of happiness.”