Jamming of the Mind
Anyone working in the business world will be familiar with the current marketing jargon. Advertisers talk of market share. For example, Coca Cola, the world’s largest beverage company, sometimes calculates its sales in terms of share of the total of all the liquids that the entire world consumes. On this basis, they figure that only a small percentage of all liquids drunk by humans is a Coca Cola product. Conclusion? The sky is the limit for “market share,” if everybody can be expected to only drink Coca Cola beverages.
Marketing strategists extend this concept to other measurements—for example, “share of wallet.” But the most invasive and deadly concept in terms of endtime spiritual entrapment is “share of mind.” Leading marketing professionals use this concept to great effect upon unassuming consumers.
The Bible tells us about the cosmological battlefront for share of the human mind. Said Christ: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). Our Lord leaves nothing to interpretation here. It is plainly said: We are to love the Lord our God, with “ALL” our minds … and 100% “share of mind.”
Satan, on the other hand, counters with lies, diversion, distractions and the gently-probing question, “Did God really say […]?” (Genesis 3:1). This relates to the rebellion of Satan and his fallen angels against God.
Looking at trends today, we can be sure that Satan has mastered the technique of capturing “share of mind.” The proof? The “share of thought” that God Almighty, His Son and His truths attract in our time—whether in so-called Christian nations or not—is probably at an all-time low. Christ too foreknew that in the day He would return, he would not find much faith on earth, saying: “[…] when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). Share of mind will be near zero. Why?
The reality is that very few people will even be aware of this grave development. The truth and vital facts of eternal significance are being crowded out of the modern mind as never before. On the one hand, information about the gospel is available more than ever; on the other, people are too distracted being amused, preoccupied and self-absorbed. In contrast, Satan is an effective and deadly “marketer,” capturing people’s attention (share of mind)—in other words, jamming the mind’s bandwidth.
How tragic. He, who is the source of all knowledge and truth, through whom all things were made (Hebrews 1:2), who is worthy of all glory and honor (Revelation 5:12), is largely an afterthought today.
In fact, deductively, the “share of mind” assault that we are discussing is a development of the end times. How so? As mentioned, very little faith will be found on earth when Jesus returns. Why? Because the Bible tells us that “hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close […] suddenly like a trap. For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth” (Luke 21:34-35).
Why the Mind Is an Endtime Target
We next continue with two key questions: Why is the human mind such an important aspect of Satan’s endtime strategies … of spiritual warfare? And, why have Satan’s strategies been so successful?
The human mind is a strategic focus in the cosmic battle for at least three important reasons: First, our faith involves the mind. “Come now, let’s reason together, says the Lord” (Isaiah 1:18). Faith, belief and obedience are connected to reasoning. As Apostle Paul admonished, we are urged to use our mind … to not put our brains on the shelf. Said Paul: “I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind” (1 Corinthians 14:15). Our minds should remain consciously involved.
In contrast, cultic religions try to immobilize and to disable the mind … to circumvent the natural safeguard of the skeptical human. Not so, God. Yes, it is true that our minds are not able to fully capture His greatness and His ways. But that does not mean we do not accept logic and reason to support our beliefs. Our Lord also allows us to question and to inquire after truth.
Another reason for the human mind being in Satan’s crosshairs is that it is the place of spiritual battle. Whatever thoughts gain access—whether through eyes, ears or spirit—it is there in the mind that they have their impact upon our hearts and soul. In fact, what the Bible calls the heart is what our mind chooses to believe and pursue.
Our thoughts rank in eternal importance just as much as our real and physical actions. Christ made this point very clear in this saying, “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Here we see that the evil thoughts of the mind, if allowed to linger and not repulsed, become an actual sin of the heart (whether there has been physical consummation or not).
Lastly, the thought world of the mind, soul and spirit of man, finds its interface in the brain, a fleshly organ that learns and adapts. This grey matter can become habituated to lifestyle, thought patterns, thinking processes and addictions. Like a muscle that becomes stronger through exercise, so the synaptic pathways of the brain can be become trained and expert, whether doing good or bad.
To the extent that we have allowed our brain to train bad thoughts and behaviors, we need to undo them. Apostle Paul refers to this as renewal. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2). This is not necessarily easy.
In conclusion, we have identified the main reasons why the human mind is the logical point of assault of our Enemy. It is there that we consciously “[…] choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15). There we have the essence that exercises faith and chooses a relationship with God; it is the spiritual war zone. And, lastly, through our physical brain, our mind can entrench behavior and responses that we may have to strain to unlearn.
Jamming the Reception of the Human Mind
Without question, the mind of modern-day humankind is under assault. We will briefly investigate some of the tactics. The attacks and incursions are increasing and effective as perhaps never before. Moreover, a global communications machinery has rapidly taken form that will play a pivotal role in enabling the Antichrist and the Beast to deceive the world.
Let’s review a few of the developments that serve to “jam” the bandwidth of people’s minds today.
- Media Concentration. What is meant by this term? Concentration of media ownership is a process whereby progressively fewer individuals or organizations control increasing shares of the mass media. When we last wrote about this phenomenon almost two decades ago, a concentration trend was already proceeding rapidly. At that time, less than 10 firms—all of them global giants—dominated world media; whether radio, television broadcasting, cable, print or the internet. They included such world-spanning companies as Sony, News Corporation, Time Warner, Viacom, Disney, Bertelsmann and others.
This industry is always changing, as media takeover and acquisition activity remains high around the globe. Today, the following companies would number among the world’s media conglomerates: National Amusements (Viacom and CBS Corporation), Time Warner, 21st Century Fox, Sony, Comcast, The Walt Disney Company, AT&T, Hearst Communications, MGM Holdings, NBCUniversal, Turner Broadcasting System, New Fox, Grupo Globo (South America) and Lagardère Group.
It is difficult to keep up-to-date with this fast-moving group. Rupert Murdoch—arguably one of the world’s most powerful media moguls, who built News Corporation—famously predicted that the world would have only three large media companies in three years.1 This has not happened … yet.
Nonetheless, the concentration trend continues apace. The big “media” whales are trying to swallow each other with multibillion-dollar deals. Recently, Comcast and Disney have been skirmishing to buy 21st Century Fox. Time Warner, another media behemoth, is being swallowed up by AT&T.
Why is this concentration trend continuing? Firms are building and consolidating distribution channels to the entry ways of the mind—the eyes and ears of mankind. We can see that a massive and unified information machinery is taking form around the world. Of course, this would be good if they were all disseminating the gospel to the four corners of the world, and other vital and/or God-honoring material.
However, as is well-known, media owners and their professional staffs are largely dominated by secular humanists. Mostly, the messages carried by the media are being determined by consumer wants and the demands of corporate profitability. All of the large global media firms are public companies, and therefore must satisfy their shareholders. Generally, high share prices and earnings is what matters to these global conglomerates, not purity and high morals.
In one way or another, it is the interest of commerce that drives the message. As the head of Westinghouse once put it (which at the time owned CBS, the television network), “We are here to serve advertisers. That is our raison d’être.”2
For a number of reasons, this global concentration trend has great significance for the world today. We can conclude that this development is playing a key role in a “mind jamming” strategy during these last days. Clearly, it is not accidental that this process has played out over such a short period, having largely occurred in accelerated fashion since the early 1980s.
Back then, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had been contemplating new ownership rules that would further open the doors to yet more concentration. One congressman made a prescient observation at that time, that will not be lost on those that recognize the prophetic season of our time. Speaking at a congressional hearing in opposition to the FCC’s proposal, John McCain, who was worried about the possible effects of continuing concentration, commented, “At some point, you’ll have many voices—and one ventriloquist.”
Though he may not have known it, Senator McCain’s words line up with prophecy. Indeed, there will be only one ventriloquist behind the world’s systems. And increasingly, this voice—Satan’s—is becoming more coordinated and pervasive than ever before. Already, he has been behind the degradation of once popular values and the invasion of humanist philosophies in mass media today.
In the next of segment of this four-part series, we will continue our expose of the many mind-jamming assaults upon the human mind that have accelerated over the last half century. Are these developments simply coincidental? Or can we discern a pattern? Without a doubt, the condition of human minds today is as compromised and disabled as ever before in the timeline of mankind.
About the Author: Wilfred J. Hahn is a global economist/strategist. Formerly a top-ranked global analyst, research director for a major Wall Street investment bank, and head of Canada’s largest global investment operation, his writings focus on the endtime roles of money, economics and globalization. He has been quoted around the world and his writings reproduced in numerous other publications and languages. You can contact him at staff@eternalvalue.com.
1 Big three will run world’s media, says Murdoch. The Australian, February 13, 2004.
2 Advertising Age, February 3, 1997.