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- CHAPTER TEN
- HOW TO BRAIN-WASH
- FRIENDS & ROBOTIZE
- PEOPLE
- There is no government, no industrial-military complex, no eco-
- nomic system, no mass media that can ever reduce us to puppets
- and robots as thoroughly as the biological and environmental dicta-
- torships have.
- — P.M. Esfandiary, Upwingers
- As noted earlier, when the bio-survival circuit flashes danger, all
- other mental activity ceases.
- There is no "time" on the bio-survival circuit; reflexes act
- without emotional ego, rational mind or adult personality partici-
- pating: "I just found myself doing it."
- All the martial arts—judo, akido, kung fu, etc.—are reim-
- printing techniques for the bio-survival circuit. They are intended
- to ensure that what happens mechanically ("without thought")
- really does serve bio-survival, since the reflexes imprinted acci-
- dentally on this circuit are not that dependable.
- The mechanical nature of the bio-survival circuit is of key
- importance in brainwashing. To create a new imprint, reduce the
- victim to an infantile state, i.e., first-circuit vulnerability.
- As pointed out in the last chapter an army begins this process
- with the draft notice, which informs the subject that his body no
- longer belongs to him but to the government. The S.L. Army,
- seeking quicker brain change, began the conversion of Patty into
- Tania by taking her at gun point, but the message was the same:
- "We can do what we want with your body from now on." First-
- circuit bio-survival instincts thus become hooked to obeying
- those who have this awesome power—just as the infant learns to
- hook its bio-survival circuitry to the parental figures.
- Patty's ride in the trunk of a car (after being taken at gun-
- point) is a classic rebirth ritual; the trunk is even womb-like in its
- contours. When the trunk opened, she was reborn into a new
- reality-tunnel, that of her captors. Similarly, where the earliest
- forms of masonic initiation survive and have not been diluted
- (Note the Adeptus Major Ritual in the Complete Golden Dawn
- System of Magic, by Israel Regardie, Falcon Press 1983.) the
- candidate is thrown into a well, and then "raised" as a newborn
- Freemason. Total submersion, the form of baptism preferred by
- Protestant fundamentalists, imitates this, but without the real
- anxiety that made traditional masonry and the SLA so effective
- as brain change agents.
- All brainwashers empirically know (without in most cases
- ever having read Leary's eight-circuit model of the brain) that
- the oral bio-survival circuit seeks bonding with a mothering fig-
- ure. To increase panic and imprint vulnerability, then, the
- subject, after being seized by the brainwashers (U.S. or S.L.
- Army, "secret police," or whoever they may be in a given case)
- 163
- 164 Prometheus Rising
- is isolated from all those to whom bonding had previously been
- established. The draftee is sent to boot camp and sees no loved
- ones (wife, girlfriend, parents, etc.) for a number of weeks or
- months. The political prisoner is thrown into a dungeon. Patty
- Hearst was locked in a closet as soon as she was "rebirthed" out
- of the trunk of the car.
- Experiments in isolation by the U.S. Marine Corps, Dr. John
- Lilly and others—and the records of shipwrecked sailors, as
- summarized by Lilly in Simulations of God—show that only a
- few hours of pure isolation may be necessary before halluci-
- nations begin. These hallucinations, like those of psychedelic
- drugs, indicate the breaking down of previous imprints and the
- onset of vulnerability to new imprints.
- The need to bond the bio-survival circuit to somebody (or
- some thing) is indicated by the giraffe who imprinted on the
- hunter's jeep as a mother-substitute. Similarly, children without
- siblings, especially those in remote rural areas, often invent
- imaginary playmates, which can become "real" enough to
- frighten the parents into suspecting the onset of psychosis. Dr.
- Lilly's records of sailors and explorers in isolation show that
- such "guides," "companions" or "holy guardian angels" reappear
- quickly even in adulthood when normal social contact is
- removed. They also come promptly to those undergoing the
- mysterious state called "near-death" or "out of body experience,"
- (e.g., when the heart stops on the operating table.)
- The first human being who appears to the subject after this
- isolation can easily become bonded as the mother-substitute, or,
- next best, as a father-substitute. This explains why people held
- prisoner by terrorists (e.g., on hijacked airplanes) often develop a
- "paradoxical" sympathy for those who are threatening to kill
- them. It also explains why the draftee begins to look on his kid-
- nappers as protectors as well as captors, and why the brainwash
- victim begins to please, gratify and eventually "respect" the
- brainwasher.
- In all cases, since the bio-survival circuit is keyed to nourish-
- ment, those who bring food become possible subjects for bond-
- ing. The political prisoner, the draftee, the subject kidnapped by
- terrorists, all move somewhat closer to identification/bonding
- with their captors as they are fed regularly. Again, this is
- Prometheus Rising 165
- imitated crudely by various religions (without the terror that
- creates true imprint vulnerability) by following baptism/rebirth
- rituals with a communal meal or Holy Eucharist.
- Adaptations of these principles can be applied even to those
- who walk into the brainwashing environment voluntarily at first,
- as in People's Temple, the Manson Family, and similar organi-
- zations. The first step, once the victim is inside the territory
- (commune), is to begin isolation by cutting off all communica-
- tion with the outer world and its conflicting reality-tunnels.
- Meanwhile, a parental-protective atmosphere is quickly created
- (sometimes called "love-bombing") and food is provided.
- Whether the subject has entered voluntarily as in these com-
- munes, or has been kidnapped or arrested (as in police states),
- the next stage is to break down the second-circuit emotional-
- territorial imprints. That means that the subject continues to be
- fed (maintaining first-circuit oral dependence) while the second-
- circuit ego is attacked in every manner possible. A point-by-
- point comparison of the techniques of a Synanon "gamer" and
- U.S. Army drill sergeant, for instance, would show astonishing
- similarities, since the basic message is dozens and dozens of
- variations on "You are all wrong. We are all right. It is extremely
- unlikely that somebody as wrong as you will become right, ever,
- but we will try to teach you." The anal vocabulary of territorial
- status is, of course, employed extensively. The ideal subject may
- almost forget his or her name and become conditioned to answer-
- ing to "You asshole, come here."
- The sense of bottom dog helplessness can be escalated by
- periodic doses of real terror. One of Charlie Manson's famous
- sayings was "Fear is the great teacher," and every brainwasher
- would agree ardently. In communist countries (as dramatized in
- Costa-Gravas's fine and factual film, The Confession) a favorite
- trick is to take the subject out of his cell, march him to a court-
- yard, place a noose about his neck, and convince him he is about
- to be hanged. The relief, when this turns out to be a bluff, creates
- ideal imprint vulnerability. A variation in my novel Illuminatus!
- has the victim persuaded he has been poisoned, dumped in a cof-
- fin and the lid slammed upon him. Those who have been initiated
- as Mark Master Freemasons will recognize at once that the same
- technique is the "mark that you will carry to your grave."
- 166 Prometheus Rising
- Among the Zuni Indians, the male at adolescence is kid-
- napped by masked "demons" who carry him away from the tribe
- (away from mother and other imprinted security figures.) He is
- dragged out into the desert and threatened with whips. Then the
- masks come off, revealing his maternal uncles, and in that
- moment of imprint vulnerability the tribal "secrets" (the local
- reality-tunnel) are explained in a way that leave an indelible
- mark on his consciousness. Similar rites of passage are found in
- all tribes, few as cleverly designed as this one. Symbolic and
- diluted versions survive in Bar Mitzvahs and Confirmation
- ceremonies in our local mega-tribes.
- The rebirthing of the second circuit is (relatively) complete
- when the Bottom Dog subject begins to seek, sincerely (not
- hypocritically) to win the approval of the Top Dogs. This, of
- course, only begins as play-acting; the skilled brainwasher
- knows that, and does not really object. With subtle reinforcement
- the play-acting becomes more and more genuine. Edmund Burke
- noted long ago, and every Method Actor knows, that you cannot
- make three dramatic gestures of rage in a political speech, with-
- out beginning to feel some real rage. You cannot make three
- gestures of submission without beginning to feel really submis-
- sive. (This is the psychology of the "company man," who truly
- identifies with his employer after years of obedience.)
- The draftee first tries to please the sergeant, to avoid further
- humiliation and punishment. Gradually, he genuinely wants to
- please the sergeant, i.e., to prove he is not all wrong and is "good
- enough" to be a soldier. Patty Hearst undoubtedly pretended to
- accept the SLA reality-tunnel at first, and gradually found the
- presence becoming more and more real.
- This process is accelerated by a system of occasional rewards,
- as the subject more and more often emits (as the Behaviorists
- would say) the desired behaviors. Since people are more compli-
- cated than Behaviorists know, it is necessary to vary this with
- occasional punishments for "insincerity," or "backsliding," so
- that the subject learns that after the initial stage, it is not enough
- to pretend to accept the new reality-tunnel; to escape further
- humiliation, ego-loss, terrorism and permanent Bottom Dog
- status, one must begin to accept it sincere/y. After the imprint of
- helplessness had been made, this conditioning and learning will
- Prometheus Rising 167
- proceed fairly smoothly, especially if the Chief Brainwasher's
- confederates reinforce it with encouragement, support, and
- general "reward" (for sincere submission) and contempt, disap-
- pointment and general rejection (for insincerity or backsliding.)
- Reimprinting the third semantic circuit can now follow easily.
- The human brain is capable of mastering any symbol-system if
- sufficiently motivated. Some people can even play Beethoven's
- late piano music, although to me this is as "miraculous" as any
- feat alleged by psychic researchers; people can learn French,
- Hindustani, differential calculus, Swahili, etc. ad. infinitum—if
- motivated. When the first circuit security needs have been
- reimprinted and second-circuit ego-needs have been hooked to
- mastering a new semantic reality-tunnel, that tunnel will be
- imprinted.
- At this point a certain amount of arbitrary nonsense is of great
- value. That is, the new reality-tunnel or symbol-system (like the
- old one) should contain pitfalls (gross violations of previous real-
- ity tunnels and common sense) so that the subject can be accused
- of backsliding (being "all wrong," after all) and thereby incited
- to try harder to become part of the new reality-tunnel.
- Thus, Jehovah's Witnesses may not accept blood transfusions,
- even if their life depends on it: harder still (since all mammals
- have an instinct to protect their young) they must reject blood
- transfusions for their children, even if the children die of this
- neglect. A Roman Catholic woman may not be divorced even if
- her husband comes home drunk every night, beats her up and
- gives her VD. In the U.S. Marines, a recruit who commits the
- hideous crime of calling a rifle a "gun" must walk around the
- base with his rifle in one hand and his penis in the other reciting
- to everybody he meets, "This is my rifle/This is my gun/This is
- for fighting/This is for fun." Theosophists were once required to
- believe that there is a hole at the North Pole going down to the
- center of the earth; Manson required his followers to believe the
- hole was in the Mojave Desert. Nazi Party members were asked
- to believe that the lion is an Aryan animal and the rabbit non-
- Aryan. Etc.
- The neurological and sociological function of such
- "nonsense" (which makes the Rationalist gasp in shock) is to
- sharply segregate those within the new reality-tunnel from those
- 168 Prometheus Rising
- outside. This makes for group solidarity, group-reinforcement,
- and a strong sense of alienation and discomfort when on rare
- occasions it is necessary to talk at all with those outside the
- brainwasher's semantic system. The group must ensure, of
- course, that this alienation is experienced as "superiority." Those
- who are outside the reality-tunnel must be perceived as "all
- wrong"—just as the subject was, before being brainwashed.
- Drugs can be, and have been, used to fine-tune these process-
- es, but the general neurological principles are powerful enough
- that it is quite likely that many famous cases of brainwashing
- were accomplished as above described, without any drugs at
- all—e.g., the American soldiers who confessed to war crimes
- which they evidently had not committed, the loyal Communists
- who confessed to Trotskyite conspiracies which seemingly never
- existed, etc. It takes very few weeks for most armies, without
- drugs, to convert a civilian into a soldier, even though the two
- species are as different as Roman Catholics and Shintoists.
- In one of my Immortal Novels I describe a religious cult
- called Loonies, founded by one Neon Bal Loon, in which mem-
- bers pray in pig-Latin while standing on one leg like storks. This
- is considered satire, but any would-be messiah who understands
- the above principles could create such a cult easily; and the
- members would soon have a quite sincere sense of superiority to
- those outside that reality-tunnel.
- Cults and outlaw terrorists generally follow the above proce-
- dures by further rewiring of the fourth, socio-sexual circuit.
- (Governments usually leave that circuit alone, since government
- agents are largely puritanical-authoritarian and afraid to get
- involved at all with raw Eros.) It is no secret that the most
- powerful secret society of the middle ages, the Knights Templar,
- forced recruits to participate in both blasphemy and sodomy. Just
- as the deliberate nonsense of all cultish third-circuit semantics
- isolates the group from the rest of society, this initiation sepa-
- rated the Templars from the rest of Christendom; the alienation
- could easily be conditioned into a sense of superiority. The Mau-
- Maus in Kenya also insisted on one act of homosexuality to
- break the new member's previous conditioning toward hetero-
- sexuality and monogamy. Other cults, some quite well known,
- Prometheus Rising 169
- attempt to repress sexuality entirely—another way of breaking
- the statistically normal imprinting of the fourth circuit.
- The Manson Family insisted on what might be called, oxymo-
- ronically, compulsory free love. The Army serves normal ama-
- tive bonds and casts the subject into a world where compulsory
- celibacy alternates with whore-house adventures and, quite often,
- the rape of enemy women, with homosexuality as an ever-
- present hidden option. A current American guru, Da Free John,
- imprints his subjects for lifelong monogamy, almost like the
- outside U.S. culture, but is indifferent as to whether these pair-
- ings are heterosexual or homosexual. Whatever variation the
- cult-leader may choose, what makes for successful "separate
- reality" is that it be in some respect outlandishly different from
- that of the major society.
- The easiest way to get brainwashed is to be born. All of the
- above principles then immediately go into action, a process
- which social psychologists euphemistically call socialization.
- The bio-survival circuit automatically hooks onto or bonds to the
- most appropriate mother or mothering object; the emotional-
- territorial circuit looks for a "role" or ego-identification in the
- family or tribe; the semantic circuit learns to imitate and then use
- the local reality-grids (symbol systems); the socio-sexual circuit
- is imprinted by whatever mating experiences are initially avail-
- able at puberty.
- The subjects may not come out of this process ready to
- murder women and children, like the graduate of boot camp, or
- even willing to believe that Charlie Manson was both Jesus and
- Satan simultaneously, or willing to spout New Left slogans while
- robbing banks. The subjects come out of normal "socialization"
- depending on where and when they were born as Eskimo
- totemists, Moslem fundamentalists, Roman Catholics, Marxist
- Leninists, Nazis, Methodist Republicans, Oxford-educated-
- agnostics, snake worshippers, Ku Kluxers, Mafiosos, Unitarians,
- IRA-ists, PLO-ists, orthodox Jews, hardshell Baptists, etc. etc.
- The universe or existence, is obviously large enough and
- complex enough and the ego self-centered enough, that all of
- these reality-tunnels are capable of "making sense," to some
- degree, to those imprinted/conditioned to accept them. It is also
- obvious that most of these reality-tunnels contain elements so
- I JO Prometheus Rising
- absurd that everybody not imprinted/conditioned by them looks
- at them with astonishment and dismay, wondering "How can a
- rational person (or peoples) believe such rubbish?"
- What the Thinker thinks, the Prover proves... whether you are
- living in a Christian reality-tunnel, a Mansonoid reality-tunnel,
- an Immortalist reality-tunnel, a vegetarian reality-tunnel, a
- Rationalist reality-tunnel...
- Everybody has the only true true religion.
- Earlier, we quoted some words from Persinger and Lafreniere:
- We, as a species, exist in a world in which exist a myriad of
- data points. Upon these matrices of points we superimpose a
- structure and the world makes sense to us. The pattern of the
- structure originates within our biological and sociological
- properties.
- Prometheus Rising 171
- It is to be hoped that this makes more sense to the reader now
- than it did at the beginning of our enquiry.
- The function of the domesticated primate brain, insofar as we
- have described it up to this point and leaving out the higher,
- newer circuits, is to serve as an "organ of adaptation" in Freud's
- phrase. Specifically, the oldest, most primitive, most mechanical
- centers serve simple bio-survival. The more recent (500,000,000
- year-old, roughly) emotional territorial centers serve to maintain
- pack identity, habitat-space and hierarchy. The distinctly homi-
- nid semantic circuit (100,000-year-old?) makes maps and
- models—reality-tunnels—which we tend to confuse with reality
- itself, and, worse yet, with "all" of reality. The (30,000? year
- old) moral-social circuit creates the domesticated adult personal-
- ity, or parent-role, or super-ego.
- Now, obviously the third, semantic circuit works with and for
- these other antique circuits. The maps and models it makes are
- tools of adaptation, and what they adapt us to is social roles in
- domesticated primate society. Thus, a Midwestern Methodist is
- not "misusing his brain" as Arthur Koestler thinks in construct-
- ing a Midwestern Methodist tunnel-reality; that is precisely what
- his brain is for, to adapt him to the Midwestern Methodist tribal
- system—to impose the structure of Midwestern Methodist ideol-
- ogy upon the myriad of data-points he encounters in his life-
- time. The Chinese Maoist, the Iranian Moslem, the New York
- Feminist, the Marin County Hedonist, etc. each has a similar,
- equally arbitrary, equally complex reality-tunnel. Each tunnel is
- also equally absurd when seen from outside.
- The problems of the modern world arise from the fact that
- these reality-tunnels are no longer isolated from each other.
- Throughout most of human history and up to 100 years ago—up
- to 20 years ago, in some parts of the world—a man or woman
- could lead their entire life snugly within the cocoon of the local
- tunnel-reality. Today, we all constantly collide with persons
- living in wildly different tunnel-realities. This creates a great
- deal of hostility in the more ignorant, vast amounts of metaphys-
- ical and ethical confusion in the more sophisticated, and growing
- disorientation for all—a situation known as our "crisis of
- values."
- 1J2
- Prometheus Rising
- The average person has a deluge of contradictory and conflict-
- ing reality-tunnels impinging on him or her, with little training in
- either cultural or neurological relativism. Speed of travel has
- increased by a factor of 1000 since 1900, and speed of commu-
- nication by a factor of 10,000,000, according to J.R. Platt. The
- deluge is accelerating and intensifying. One symptom is the fact
- that TV Guide has been taken over by a band of terrified conser-
- vatives, who cannot understand and can only dread this down-
- pour of "alien" signals; instead of being merely a guide to what
- is on the tube, TV Guide has become a continuous wail that the
- tube's tunnel-reality is wider, stranger and more varied than the
- narrow tunnel-vision of the small-town WASP.
- There has also arisen a profession of "deprogrammers," so-
- called. These are neuro-technicians who will, for a fee, kidnap a
- child (even a "child" over 21) who has wandered off, departed
- the parental reality-tunnel and been brainwashed into the com-
- peting reality-tunnel of some new (i.e., not established—not
- acceptable yet) "cult." This is known as restoring the victim to
- normalcy.
- Prometheus Rising 173
- It is all hypocrisy and neurological ignorance, of course. The
- "de-programmers" are actually re-programmers. The parental
- tunnel-reality is as arbitrary (and, to an outsider, as bizarre) as
- that of any "cult." A special system of tricky semantics allows
- most people and some courts to ignore these facts. Just imagine
- what would happen if a wayward child of Methodist parents had
- wandered into the Roman Catholic Church, say, and the parents
- attempted to have that child coercively "de-programmed" (repro-
- grammed) into Methodism; or if the child had joined the U.S.
- Army, like Calley, and the parents kidnapped him and tried to re-
- program him into civilian reality-tunnels.
- These problems will not go away; and the abrasions they
- cause, as various brainwashed robots continue to collide with
- each other, will accelerate. Speed of travel and of communica-
- tion are still continuing to accelerate.
- Fortunately, higher circuits are forming in the human brain
- and offer broader vistas than the narrow tunnel-visions of the
- antique circuits. That is the topic of our concluding chapters.
- Since everybody "prefers" one circuit over the others, there
- are people in each society who are easily recognizable as Narcis-
- sists (first-circuit robots), Emotionalists (second-circuit robots),
- Rationalists (third-circuit robots) and Moralists (fourth-circuit
- robots).
- Rationalist robots, like the other robots, may be totally mech-
- anized or may have some slight flexibility, or "freedom" built
- into their circuitry. The totally robotized make up the vast horde
- of the Fundamentalist wing of the Materialist church and the
- other True Believers in the scientific paradigms of 1968, 1958,
- 1948 or whenever their nervous systems stopped taking new
- imprints.
- These are the people who are perpetually frightened and dis-
- mayed by the large portion of human behavior mediated through
- Circuit II mammalian politics. They think that because this terri-
- torial-emotional ("patriotic") behavior is not Rational, it should
- not exist. They accept Darwin as dogma, but are nervous about
- "Darwinism" (because it accepts mammalian politics as an
- Evolutionary Strategy that has worked thus far) and are repulsed
- by the data of ethology, genetics and sociobiology. They don't
- like the rest of the human race much, because it is not guided by
- IJ4 Prometheus Rising
- their favorite circuit, and they are uneasily aware that the rest of
- the human race does not like them much.
- These Rationalist robots are also very uncomfortable with the
- newer circuits—and some of them spend most of their lives
- writing articles and books devoted to "proving" that the newer
- circuits do not exist and that all scientists who have recorded the
- behavior of these newer circuits are liars, fools, bunglers, charla-
- tans or some manner of Damned Heretics.
- Like the Emotional robot, the Moralistic robot, the Narcissist
- robot etc., the Rationalist robot cannot be "argued" out of his
- narrow reality tunnel. We can only emphasize, one more time,
- that each and every reality-tunnel created by a domesticated
- primate brain is a finite cross-section of that brain's personal
- history; and each such finite reality-tunnel is as "personalized" as
- the music of Bach or Beethoven, the paintings of Rembrandt or
- Picasso, the novels of Joyce or Raymond Chandler, the comedy
- of the Three Stooges or Monty Python, the religions of Roman
- Catholicism or Zen Buddhism, the politics of Libertarianism or
- the IRA, the architecture of St. Peter's or Disney land...
- And each of these art-works seems like "reality" to the people
- who have created them and live in them. Rationalism is just
- another such group art-work, a little less tolerant than most, a
- little more useful to technologists than any other, a little stupid
- when it can no longer transcend the last paradigm it has created.
- The totally robotized Rationalist, the one whose nervous
- system has stopped growing entirely, can be recognized by two
- signs:
- He or she is constantly trying to prove that much of the daily
- experience of the rest of humanity is "delusion," "hallucination,"
- "group hallucination," "mass hallucination," "mere coincidence,"
- "sheer coincidence," or "sloppy research."
- And he or she never thinks that any of his or her own experi-
- ence would fit into any of those categories.
- EXERCIZES
- 1. Become a pious Roman Catholic. Explain in three pages
- why the Church is still infallible and holy despite Popes like
- Alexander VI (the Borgia Pope), Pious XII (ally of Hitler), etc.
- Prometheus Rising 775
- 2. For those of you who remember Mai Lai, become Lt.
- Galley. Say aloud, and really feel and believe, "The Army comes
- first. I'm for the Army all the way." If you don't remember try
- Jerry Falwell. Say aloud, and really feel and believe, "Help us
- fight moral decay, send your checks in today."
- 3. Refute this whole book. Demonstrate that everybody else
- has been brainwashed but you and your mother (father) has the
- one, real, objective view of the universe.
- 4. Accept this book, if not in whole at least in general out-
- lines. Assume you have been brainwashed. Try to learn as much
- from every human you meet about their separate reality-tunnel
- and see how much of it you can use to make your reality-tunnel
- bigger and more inclusive. In other words, learn to listen.
- 5. James Joyce said he never met a boring human being. Try
- to explain this. Try to get into the Joycean head space, where
- everybody is a separate reality-island full of mystery and sur-
- prise. In other words, learn to observe.
- 6. Read Aldous Huxley's The Genius and the Goddess. Note
- how the Circuit III scientific Genius reverts to Circuit I helpless
- infant when his wife leaves him.
- 7. After experimenting with the Nazi reality-tunnel, the
- Catholic reality-tunnel etc., re-enter your "normal" reality tunnel.
- Does it still seem totally objective, or do you begin to recognize
- how much of it is your own software and hardware running
- programs?
- 8. Finally, explore the tunnel-busting reality of Christopher S.
- Hyatt' s book titled Undoing Yourself With Energized Meditation
- and Other Devices. What tunnel-reality is he selling and how
- sincere is he about his writing? Also, do you think he has read
- my work and I his, or is this last statement a gimmick of the pub-
- lishers played on two innocent authors and the trusting public or
- even worse did I write his book, or could it be, that we are one
- and the same?
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