well, here is one definition - i am looking for others.

"WHAT IS PROGRAMMING?
Programming refers both to the process of teaching part of the mind unquestioned obedience and to the content of what is taught. Thus you can say that a person has been programmed to suicide under certain conditions, or you can talk about a suicide program that is triggered (activated) by certain words or conditions.

The word programming has a heaviness to it, an aura of machine-like inevitability. It is helpful to remember that programming is something that is done to a human being by another human being, for a specific reason, using certain time-tested techniques, at a certain time and place. If you think of programming as training, some of the heaviness and mystery lifts."
http://www.ra-info.org/faqs/ra_faq.shtml#symptoms