A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to uncovering the history and techniques of cultural engineering
Winston-Salem, NC
Joined January 2024
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Out now: Volume 3 of Cultural Engineering Studies
This new volume takes up the theme of Neo-Gnosticism and examines its role in shaping the deeper logic of modern film, media, politics, and cultural engineering. Inside, you can find articles that trace the myths of false liberation, spiritual inversion, and manufactured rebellion that have helped form the modern imagination.
Featuring writings by:
Jamie Hanshaw (@JamieLHanshaw)
Jasun Horsley, (@JaKephas)
Brett Carollo (@DecoderShell)
Joshua Stylman (@jstylman)
Paul and Phillip Collins (@PhillipDCollin1)
Hans Utter, and
Thomas Millary (@CinemaPsyop)
Plus a interactive zine by Mrs Horsley (@Mrs___Horsley)
If you want serious research, strong writing, and a print publication built to last, this is our strongest volume yet.
Order now: decoding-culture.com/cultura…
1/5
Rob Reiner’s "The American President" (1995), written by Aaron Sorkin, stars Michael Douglas as widowed Democratic President Andrew Shepherd, who falls for environmental lobbyist Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening) while managing re-election pressures, a crime bill, and an environmental agenda. A Situation Room sequence has Shepherd order a “proportional response” strike on Libyan intelligence headquarters after an attack on a U.S. missile-defense system in Israel.
Federal involvement centered on White House access to research rather than the formal Department of Defense production-assistance agreements common in other films. The attached Decoding Culture Foundation FOIA materials include excerpts from the DoD Hollywood Database; public records show the Clinton administration opened the White House for research. Reiner visited five times in 1993, including a two-day shadowing of the presidential schedule; Sorkin and Douglas also toured. Reiner later noted, “This was the one administration we were allowed access to.”
4/5
Did the government alter the script or the finished film? Public sources and available FOIA-derived database materials do not show line-by-line Pentagon notes or mandatory changes typical when producers seek ships, aircraft, or bases. Access shaped the film’s texture: sets, procedures, staff dynamics, and encouraged a Capra-esque, affirmative portrait of the presidency and its staff. The proportional-response scene presents a measured use of force without exploring deeper strategic or legal constraints; the overall tone humanizes a liberal administration while subordinating personal life to public duty.
The advantage to the administration was soft and reputational: a major studio film, researched under its auspices, offered a polished, competent Democratic White House at a moment of real-world scandal coverage. The film’s success ($108 million worldwide on a reported $62 million budget) and later influence on The West Wing extended that image.
5/5
The Clinton White House granted substantial research access that informed the sets, procedures, and workplace atmosphere of The American President, producing a realistic yet idealized portrait of a liberal Democratic presidency that ordered measured military force and prioritized progressive domestic goals. Unlike hardware-for-script-control deals common with the Pentagon, this cooperation was consultative, shaping a Capra-esque narrative that humanized the office and its staff at a politically useful moment. The film’s long afterlife via The West Wing extended that framing.
Want to know more about the entangled relationship between Hollywood and the US Federal Government? The first three volumes of Cultural Engineering Studies, available now in one discounted bundle.This set brings together our opening trilogy of research anthologies on propaganda, Hollywood, and the hidden machinery of cultural engineering in a polished, collectible format.
Order now at: decoding-culture.com/product…
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Am…
sun-sentinel.com/1995/11/18/…
variety.com/1995/voices/colu…
nytimes.com/1995/11/12/movie…
imdb.com/title/tt0112346/ful…
imdb.com/title/tt0112346/tri…
cinemablend.com/television/h…
app.box.com/s/jtdoblo6ckyv8u…
app.box.com/s/igiy56w7qpxl7l…
Available now: Decoding Culture Foundation Director of Research Operations Brett Carollo's newly released book, "Transhumanism and the Religion of Apotheosis", published by Cascade Books.
Order now at: wipfandstock.com/products/tr….
About the book:
"In this study, which offers a detailed intellectual history of the contemporary transhumanist movement, Brett Carollo defends the view that transhumanism is a fundamentally religious phenomenon. The core of the transhumanist enterprise, Carollo demonstrates, is apotheosis, or the perennial impulse toward self-deification underlying the Western occult and the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, among other channels of influence. What distinguishes transhumanism is its ethos of techno-superhumanism, the exclusive reliance on technology as a means to achieving superpowered immortality. The transhumanists themselves constantly invoke the symbolic figures of Prometheus and Lucifer to express the spiritually transgressive nature of their ambitions, and they self-consciously distort Christian theology, particularly eschatology, to the same end, peddling false promises of a technological resurrection. Indeed, as Carollo shows, this sort of immanentization of the transcendent is a hallmark feature of transhumanist thought, alongside techno-superhumanism and apotheosis—a perverse mysticism that contrasts with theosis, the form of deification taught by Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Applying a religious comparative lens, alongside theological and intellectual-historical analysis, Transhumanism and the Religion of Apotheosis exposes the roots of this unhallowed counter-spirituality and examines why it has become the de facto religion of the global superclass."
Coming soon, the DCF will share a new article by Carollo: a deep dive into the relationship between Hollywood and Gnosticism.
Follow for all the latest!
🧵1/6
Peter Berg’s Deepwater Horizon (2016) dramatizes the April 20, 2010, explosion and fire aboard the Transocean-operated, BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven men died; the subsequent oil spill became the largest in U.S. history. The film centers on the 126 crew members’ efforts to control the well and evacuate, with Mark Wahlberg as electronics technician Mike Williams, while foregrounding corporate pressure from BP that contributed to the blowout.
Federal involvement arrived through the U.S. Coast Guard (a component of the Department of Homeland Security). The attached Decoding Culture Foundation FOIA releases include a DHS Entertainment Liaison Office binder and U.S. Coast Guard Motion Picture & Television Office (MOPIC) logs covering 2012–2018. These offices exist to track, review, and selectively assist productions that depict the Service. Credits list Paul J. Roszkowski as Coast Guard liaison and John W. Pruitt III as Coast Guard advisor; the production publicly acknowledged consulting Coast Guard personnel for technical accuracy on the response.
🧵5/6
Promotion followed standard major-studio practice, heavy television advertising (Lionsgate led weekly TV ad spending in the run-up), IMAX and wide theatrical release on 30 September 2016, and emphasis on the “heroic true story.” The authenticity conferred by survivor consultants and Coast Guard advisors was part of the credibility pitch. Louisiana’s film incentive program returned roughly $37.7 million in tax credits on $122 million of in-state spending, lowering the effective production cost. The film earned about $125 million worldwide against a net budget near $110 million and was widely regarded as a commercial disappointment, though critical reception praised its technical execution and performances.
No large-scale official Coast Guard promotional partnership appears in the public record, but the advisory relationship itself functioned as soft endorsement: the Service’s technical experts helped shape the version of events audiences saw.
🧵6/6 The federal government, via DHS and the Coast Guard’s entertainment liaison apparatus, monitored and advised on Deepwater Horizon during production. The result was a major studio film that dramatizes the worst U.S. oil spill while presenting the Coast Guard’s rescue response as timely and professional, and that locates primary responsibility with corporate and operational choices on the rig rather than with the broader regulatory framework. The DCF FOIA releases on the DHS ELO binder and USCG MOPIC logs document the paper trail of that involvement.
Want to know more about the entangled relationship between Hollywood and the US Federal Government? The first three volumes of Cultural Engineering Studies, available now in one discounted bundle.This set brings together our opening trilogy of research anthologies on propaganda, Hollywood, and the hidden machinery of cultural engineering in a polished, collectible format.
Order now at: decoding-culture.com/product…
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwa…
emanuellevy.com/review/deewa…
uscg.mil/Public-Affairs/Moti…
metacritic.com/movie/deepwat…
imdb.com/name/nm8161615/
the-numbers.com/movie/Deepwa…
variety.com/2016/more/news/d…
app.box.com/s/1508olevjut7hp…
app.box.com/s/0echefgkfom0ji…
Great article by our friend and researcher Travis Mateer, using some of our archive materials to expand on the deep history of the Hollywood-CIA relationship
If it's Friday it's time to DECODE SOME CULTURE!...CC @Culture_Decode and @CinemaPsyop #mtnews #mtpol #OSS #CIA #NarrativeControl zoomchron.com/2026/10/16/dec…
Decoding Culture Foundation retweeted
If it's Friday it's time to DECODE SOME CULTURE!...CC @Culture_Decode and @CinemaPsyop #mtnews #mtpol #OSS #CIA #NarrativeControl zoomchron.com/2026/10/16/dec…
Decoding Culture Foundation retweeted
Announcing the release of my book on transhumanism, published by Cascade Books. wipfandstock.com/products/tr…
“Once you see the mechanics of it, it demystifies it, it disenchants it, and it’s no longer entertaining. It no longer entrains you, it no longer entertains you.”
~ Brett Carollo
DCF Director of Research Operations Dr. Brett Carollo and President Thomas Millary were recently featured on Solari Report's Cognitive Liberty Series: The Performance Layer. Check out their full conversation here: solari.com/cognitive-liberty….
Decoding Culture Foundation retweeted
TRANSHUMANISM AND THE RELIGION OF APOTHEOSIS
My dear friend Dr. Brett Carollo of @CinemaPsyop and @Culture_Decode has published the best book on transhumanism of which I'm aware. Buy a copy, and spread the word about this very important book.
@_kruptos @JaKephas @Philosophos87 @FringeViews @macroaggressio3 @JayDyer @PhillipDCollin1 @owenbroadcast @jstylman @_DayzofNoah
1/5
Fully Charged is a 2015 documentary directed by David Martin and produced with bestselling author Tom Rath (StrengthsFinder 2.0, Eat Move Sleep). It is not a combat film, but rather a 66-minute wellness documentary on meaning, positive interactions, and health. U.S. Army Entertainment Liaison Office records show it received formal production assistance. An April 2015 project list and later weekly reports log it under Missionday with a fully signed Production Assistance Agreement, status “Production; PAA fully signed; awaiting rough cut.”
4/5
This is the opposite of a critical documentary. Where The Invisible War used limited interview access to attack chain-of-command handling of assault, Fully Charged used a PAA to present Army health leadership as practical experts for general audiences. The 2015–2017 Army trackers place it alongside projects ranging from Hell’s Kitchen segments with NCOs to Vice documentaries and recruiting-adjacent profiles. The common thread is that assistance is logged when the depiction is judged in the service’s interest. A film that treats Army sleep doctrine as a life hack meets that test more easily than one that indicts the institution.
5/5
The signed a Production Assistance Agreement for a wellness documentary, put its Surgeon General on camera, and retained rough-cut review. The resulting film carried military health messaging into the same corporate and self-help channels that already bought Rath’s books. No public record located here shows the finished cut used in recruiting ads. The promotional return was quieter and more durable: an authoritative military voice inside a product sold as universal advice on how to live and work.
Want to know more? The first three volumes of Cultural Engineering Studies together in one discounted bundle. This set brings together our opening trilogy of research anthologies on propaganda, Hollywood, and the hidden machinery of cultural engineering in a polished, collectible format.
Order now at: decoding-culture.com/product…
Sources:
US Army Entertainment Liaison Office reports 2010–2015 (DCF): app.box.com/s/qw6fixgxifefcl…
Army project tracker / weekly materials (DCF): app.box.com/s/4jrau8t8dxh9xy…
US Army Current Entertainment Project, April 2015 (DCF): app.box.com/s/y5peqbn9yjy21i…
Rath on Horoho and sleep: nextbigideaclub.com/magazine…
Film trailer and description: youtube.com/watch?v=H5IL9nD9…
Film record: play.google.com/store/movies…
Film Website: fullychargedmovie.com/
