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Free Your Mind

The New World of Manipulation and How to Resist It

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Free Your Mind

By: Laura Dodsworth, Patrick Fagan
Narrated by: Henry Nott
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About this listen

 The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller

Learn how to recognise and resist the daily attempts to control and manipulate your mind.

There is a war on for your mind. You may not notice, but you are surrounded by manipulators: advertisers, politicians, big tech, even the humble waiter who asks, ‘Still or sparkling?’

Free Your Mind is your field manual to surviving the information battlefield. In this indispensable book, Laura Dodsworth and Patrick Fagan draw on interviews with mind-control experts ranging from monks to magicians, infiltrate cults and forums to uncover their most deceptive techniques and expose the hidden tactics used to influence you, from social media to subliminal messages.

Learn how to recognise the nudges, dispel efforts to brainwash you and always question those who say the choice is yours. If you don’t control your mind, someone else will.

©2023 Laura Dodsworth, Patrick Fagan (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers Communication & Social Skills Media Studies Personal Development Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Social Psychology & Interactions Social Sciences

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Critic reviews

‘A sceptic’s charter. A thorough and entertaining guide for how to keep other people’s ulterior agendas out of your head.’ Lionel Shriver

‘Free Your Mind is an instant classic, full of wisdom about what it means to try and hang onto our humanity amidst the clamour of modern life. If you like the quirkily brilliant work of Malcolm Gladwell, you’ll love this book. I’m buying it for all my friends.’ Allison Pearson

‘We must all learn to spot the difference between useful and harmful persuasion. This book is a perfect place to start.’ Rory Sutherland
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Most relevant  
This book provides insights on the tricks used to manipulate people. This is your counter attack/defence, so you are free to choose how you will live your life and sculpt your own beliefs and principles.

Avoid manipulation, free your mind

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Well done Laura and Patrick. This book is easy to read and very informative. It presents many ideas that were new to me about how to guard against being manipulated by the usual suspects.

The narrator did a good job of delivering the content in an engaging way. I just wish some one had told him how to pronounce some of the basic words he mangled. It was a bit jarring at times.

Informative and objective

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This audio book was excellently narrated and well written. It gave me an insight into the various methods employed to nudge and coerce individuals/groups towards a certain viewpoint or action. I was surprised by the level of sophistication employed at times by both well intentioned and malevolent actors.

Very Informative and Well Written

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Good listen and informative.... When it comes to the media in its hydra like aspects..... ts all about control.

This book confirms your suspicions...

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One of those audiobooks you don't swap but listen to to the end. Interesting, intriguing, and contributing to the increased "know thyself" experience. One of my best listening experiences this year.

Eye opening

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I was aware of a lot of the manipulation that goes on in the world but this book was a great reminder. The narration was a little OTT but not enough to stop me listening. Great book and well written!

highly recommend!

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I've been reading Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman for about 5 years. It's one of those books that is so deep and detailed that there is always something to take from it. I have 3 copies, One is kept on the book shelf, one copy I take everywhere with notes made on the pages each time I find something to go back to, and one copy to lend out to others as I recommend the book so much.
Like Dr Bronowski (Ascent of Man) Thinking Fast and Slow is a life-changing book. From Thinking Fast and Slow I have learned a number of ways of tackling life problems, An example is forcing the use of System 2 and being aware that it's easy to fail into using System 1 if you are not paying attention.
I've been looking for books to help me know how to look at information well, particularly news from TV, Newspapers, and Social Media. And given that interesting people like Rory Sutherland and Lionel Shriver made comments on the back of this book I was hoping this book was it. But, it is not. It tries to be. It does push a number of agendas along the lines of X/Twitter hot button issues which is sad because if you can get past those you do get to some useful information. The book will take an interesting point, point out that the data on this issue has faults then make a point using it. Which just makes reading this very hard. An example is in Chapter 2 "Stand your ground" it will show One organization using an Availability Cascade but not other examples from other pressure groups. It leaves you with the impression that Brainwashing is being done by the authors and so the point is tainted.
But they do a great job of finding manipulation techniques and great examples of people like magicians and journalists where the techniques can be found then at the end of the chapters the rules are useful.
In summary, I had to wade through lots of the author's hot-button views on minority issues, for example, Toxic Masculinity, Covid Denying, Sex kinks, and Drag Show Story Time, when I just wanted to understand methods of pushing a narrative being used by all sides. The best thing I learned from the whole book was "think about what they are not saying" and "look where they don't want you to". In the meantime I will go back to Thinkin Fast and Slow.
PS an example of what I was hoping to understand is the Motte-and-bailey fallacy which would have been amazing.

Not what I was hoping for, but it is trying to be

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this book is very well narrated, well researched, and draws from a number of historical and contemporary sources to chart the progress through the ages in how our thoughts are manipulated to achieve control over us for good and bad reasons. it helps us spot the techniques and be more avoid them. each chapter ends with 3 or 4 practical things we can do to take back control of our minds

Take back control of what and how you think

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This book needs to be read by everyone no matter your political or religious beliefs. In it you will learn what and how scammers, liars and manipulators work and more importantly what you can do to resist.

Recommend this book.

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Very insightful book show how the majority of people are manipulated
Worth learning how to spot it.

Everyone should read this.

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