"Remember, Mr. Hasbrook, when the Admiral spoke of wearing a path through the mind? That gave me the idea. Every thought, every mental image, every sense-impression, consists essentially of an electric discharge-pattern between millions of neurons in the cortex of the brain. The pattern is so complicated that it is better described as a 'web' than as a 'path'.
"But it's a definite linkage between definite cells, and the passage of electric current quasi-permanently lowers the resistance of the synapses between the neurons. Therefore one can re-create the pattern at will; or rather, electrically re-activate a pattern already created. This we call 'remembering'.
"In the setting up of one of these patterns by the lowering of resistance through certain synapses, many small discharges are as effective as one large one. Therefore an unnoticed sound that one hears or a sight that one sees daily becomes an integral part of one's personality.
"MY transmitter was designed to be placed in the regular transmitter of any electrical communication system, either wire or wireless, and connected in parallel with the transmitter circuit. It was so constructed that when the circuit was activated, the little transmitter would feed a sound-modulated current of the same frequency as that of the main circuit into it. The added current would carry a simple word-pattern urging the listener to lie. For instance, the transmitters installed in Germany said 'Es ist gut zu lügen— es ist gut zu lügen' over and over."The listener would not actually hear these words, because they were a mere inaudible murmur superimposed on the conversation of the speaker. But, if he used the instrument often enough, the minute neuronic impulses caused by these sounds would in time wear the necessary paths in his brain, and he'd believe it was good to 'lügen'. With these devices installed in the telephones and radios used by the dictators, ministers, and general staffs of the Alliance countries, the result was what we have seen. In other words, we made pathological liars out of them."
He paused again, and I could imagine millions of resentful soldiers taking their destinies into their own hands; of their officers, some yelling, threatening, and being contemptuously shot down, others discreetly removing their insignia and joining their men.
"That's what I meant by saying that we'd hoist them with their own petard. All these men have made such extensive use of that never-obsolete weapon, the lie, and they're all such accomplished liars anyway, that it didn't take as much of this form of suggestion to achieve our object as it would have with more truthful people. ”