What is "brain-washing"

n. A form of indoctrination that forces people to abandon their beliefs in favour of another set of beliefs by conditioning through various forms of pressure or torture(reference-book year=1990 author=David A. Statt title=The Concise Dictionary of Psychology publisher=Routledge isbn=0415026628 pages=18-19)(reference-book year=2000 author=James K. Boehnlein title=Psychiatry and Religion: The Convergence of Mind and Spirit publisher=American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc. isbn=0880489200 pages=73-74)(reference-book year=2001 author=Raymond J. Corsini publisher=Routledge title=The Dictionary of Psychology isbn=1583913289 pages=127)(reference-book year=2007 author=Virginia A. Sadock, Harold I. Kaplan title=Kaplan and Sadock's Synopsis of Psychiatry: Behavioral Sciences/Clinical Psychiatry publisher=Lippincott Williams & Wilkins isbn=978-0781773270 pages=676)

Brain-Washing (subtitle: A Synthesis of the Russian Textbook on Psychopolitics), sometimes referred to as The Brainwashing Manual, is a book published by the Church of Scientology in 1955. It purports to be a condensation of the work of Lavrentiy Beria, the Soviet secret police chief. The book states Kenneth Goff as author. Its true authorship is not clear, the three common hypotheses being: Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard, Kenneth Goff (alias Oliver Kenneth Goff), or both L Ron Hubbard and Kenneth Goth based on an acquired US agency report. The third hypothesis is questionable as there is not proof that the two men ever knew each other. Claims that L Ron Hubbard was the author are also dubious as the only source of this claim is his estranged son, L Ron Hubbard Jr., who made it his life work trying to intentionally discredit his father in every possible way, and in addition to withdrawing all his accusations before his death, has been discredited in courts of law.

It is also sometimes referred to as The Communist Manual of Psycho-Political Warfare or the Communist Manual of Instructions of Psychopolitical Warfare.