How it Began
Edward Bernays is the father of modern sales, marketing, and public relations. Those three separate fields are interconnected because they come from the same two roots; Sigmund Freud and Joseph Goebbels. Of course, there was no direct connection between Freud and Goebbels. Freud was Jewish, and Goebbels was a Nazi. It took Freud’s nephew and protege, Edward Bernays, to synthesize the two approaches into a master blueprint for manipulating the public. Freud’s most remarkable talent was as a salesperson. He fooled generations of women into thinking they were jealous for not having a penis. He started as a legitimate researcher, but his original work was too controversial. He discovered that what he called “female hysteria” was caused by molestation and familial incest. The backlash against this was so severe that it threatened Freud’s professional and financial future. Faced with ostracism for telling the truth, Freud redirected his i...