Choose Your Own Brainwashing, Day 10 (Patreon)

“I do enjoy it when people understand my worth and demonstrate it to the best of their ability. This is how I like the people who serve me to think. But you’ve chosen a different path. I’m not usually one for worship, and I think you’ll have to convince me that your prostrations will have meaning for me before I accept them.”

Your focus on the spiral falters. Until that moment you hadn’t realized that there might be a difference between service and worship.

“I’ve asked a part of you to examine the skills that you don’t have much confidence in, for whatever reason. Maybe you haven’t practiced, maybe you don’t know if I have a use for someone with that skill… ask yourself this: is there anything on that list of potentially useful skills that involves worshiping me?”

You are unsure just how you’re supposed to answer that question, about a list of things you haven’t even been consciously thinking about, when your mind tells you that the answer is no. No explanation, just… no. And you find that you understand yourself. Because worship is not a skill to someone who doesn’t need to be worshiped.

“I don’t need to be worshiped.” Lee confirms. “Some people enjoy being worshiped and that’s fine, that’s wonderful for them, but not as much for me. I’m more interested in rewarding you for things that are more tangible than that.

“And my praise should be something that you cultivate. Hearing my voice can bring you pleasure, and hearing me praise you can be so much more than that, because if I’m praising you, that means that you can praise yourself for a job well done.

“So while you think about what I’ve told you, you can keep on watching that spiral, and I wonder if you’ll start to notice that the spiral is changing again as I speak. Maybe it spins faster if I speak faster, or changes colors if I’m very quiet. Just keep watching and noticing how it can change as I speak and while you’re paying such close attention to that let’s give you something else to do as well.

“Many people say that being brainwashed through a mantra is a very powerful experience. When you first start speaking you might stumble over your words a little bit, maybe your mind needs that stumble to give it time to assimilate the words, but eventually you find that the words come easily to your lips without you having to think about them too much, and each repetition just reinforces the truth of what you’re saying.

“Repeating a mantra while watching a spiral might be so overwhelming for you that you’ll find that you’ve already been saying one without knowing it all this time. Or maybe I’m convincing you that that’s true right now. Listen to yourself for a moment and see what you hear.”

What do you hear?

1. A Mantra.
2. Just breathing.
3. Kind of a moaning.
4. My heartbeat.