about the Christ, who is the image of God, might not shine through.” Satan keeps millions in the dark by filling their mind so full of trivialities and falsehoods that no room remains for enlightening truths about Jehovah. Through his demonic mental assaults Satan thinks for these millions, implanting his thoughts in their mind and filling their heart with his ways, yet doing it so subtly that they think these thoughts are their own. We usually believe what we want to believe, and one thing we like to believe is that we do our own thinking. Hence it is not too hard for clever propagandists to make us think their thoughts are ours. They plant the thought and nourish it, but do it so subtly that we think it is our own.—2 Cor. 4:4, NW.

“We may not be overreached by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his designs.” We should know the clever tricks of his propagandists. They are many, but to mention just one, unsavory labels are stuck on anything that they oppose. If one is intellectual he is an egghead. If he likes good music he is a longhair. If he has good manners he is a sissy. If he reads good books he is a bookworm. If he takes his true worship seriously he is a fanatic. But if he breezes airily by the better things, not being overly serious, he is a regular fellow. But to be pushed around by such social pressure, to be shoved and maneuvered by a fear of labels, is to show a pathetic immaturity, an inability to think for ourselves, a lack of intelligent convictions. We should gain accurate knowledge for ourselves, “in order that we should no longer be babes, tossed about as by waves and carried hither and thither by every wind of teaching by means of the trickery of men, by means of craftiness in contriving error.”—2 Cor. 2:11; Eph. 4:14, NW.

Why be tricked by crafty men into adopting their thoughts, especially when those men have themselves been snared by Satan and pumped full of his poisonous subtleties and like ventriloquists’ dummies chatter them out under his unseen direction? Why allow yourself to be brainwashed by dupes oblivious to their own mental bondage? The brains of millions need a washing, but not with the political or religious propagandas of this system of things under Satan. Rather, everyone needs regular cleansings “with the bath of water by means of the word” of Jehovah God, to get his thoughts instead of man’s or Satan’s. Then all will rest content in the highest possible wisdom: “The wisdom from above is first of all chaste, then peaceable, reasonable, ready to obey, full of mercy and good fruits, not making partial distinctions, not hypocritical.”—Eph. 5:26; Jas. 3:17, NW.

Nobody but Jehovah’s Witnesses

The April 16, 1956, Newsweek published an interview with a German youth from East Germany. He had been indoctrinated by the Russians, though not a card-carrying Communist. When asked about the books that were read he replied: “We read Russian and German classics, hardly anything else.” “And the Bible?” his interviewer asked. “(Laughter.) Nobody but Jehovah’s witnesses reads the Bible.” That doubtless accounts for their success in withstanding the brainwashing techniques of the Communists.