A study just printed confirms the dangerous effect advertising can have on the unguarded thought.
Young children were given identical McDonald’s foods in name-brand and unmarked wrappers. They were then asked to identify which food tasted better. The branded foods always won out.
Why?
Researchers figure the pervasive and pointed marketing strategies of the food maker are the reason for the difference, and use the study to illustrate the powerful influence advertising has on children’s tastes and choices.
“Study author Dr. Tom Robinson said the kids’ perception of taste was ‘physically altered by the branding.’ The Stanford University researcher said it was remarkable how children so young were already so influenced by advertising,” the report indicated.
When I read the report, I dismayed for children, but even more, I wondered how many adults fall victim to the same type of mesmeric influence advertising strives to sway over their thinking.
And I’m not talking about consumer choices like which car to buy, or where to eat out. I’m thinking of deeper issues like choices we make to be healthy or not, depressed or happy, strong or weak, sick or well, poor or wealthy.
For example, the media is filled with images of disease and fear-breeding health reports. It gives the impression that the threat of illness lurks at every corner and we should live in paranoia as to whether we can stay healthy or not.
In light of the food report, how many adults unwittingly chose to live sick and depressed when they could live healthy and joyous? How many adults choose to live a harried, stressed filled life when they could have days filled with peace and buoyancy?
Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer and founder of Christian Science wrote,
The press unwittingly sends forth many sorrows and diseases among the human family. It does this by giving names to diseases and by printing long descriptions which mirror images of disease distinctly in thought.
God has given each of us a productive, profitable, happy and healthy life to experience. It is eternally ours, but in this human experience we must assiduously protect our thinking from the harmful influence of advertising created to alter our perceptions in a way that causes us to accept premises that are not in our best interests.
Like the children who unwittingly chose the branded food as most desirable because that’s what they learned through advertising to choose, adults too often unwittingly choose to be sick because that’s what they learned through the media to expect out of life.
The lesson from all of this is to stay alert, to vigorously defend one’s mental home from outside influence, and to remain strong in knowing there is only one true influence, the divine Mind influence, over every thought and action.
The child of God, the expression of sound spiritual wisdom, intelligence and reasoning, is solely under the influence of God, and cannot be manipulated by baneful advertising.
Think for yourself—your spiritual self—and stay free of mesmerism.