I have been getting asked more and more about the Dark Side of persuasion. I refer to The Dark Side material as the manipulative covert hypnosis strategies so messed up that they can really cause psychological or even physical damage to a person. These are strategies I would never skills that I would never use unless my life was in jeopardy.
I know some twisted people want to learn so they can use the Dark Side material to have power over others, some want to know how to defend themselves against the power and some are just curious. I did promise in an earlier post that I would write a blog about how to protect yourself from people who are trying to use the dark side of persuasion against you. It’s easier to defend against these than you think; and I promise out soon.
I WILL NOT teach the Dark Side material. 1. Because it’s freakin EVIL and 2. because I don’t know the dark side material. But I do know enough to share so that you’ll be able to recognize it being used on you. To satisfy the curiosity of some readers I also will be making another list post that lays out some of the hard-to-find the Dark Side strategies, some of the forbidden patterns and other things that NLP trainers have banned.
I know this will sound strange, but I will also share a strange story about how some jerk-off NLP trainer used the dark side persuasion material was used on me and what I did to block it.
I think it is funny how people email me trying to persuade me not to persuasion.
Let me explain. People from the internet are calling me insulting names, giving me examples of why conversational hypnosis is immoral, or they list seemingly logical but still ignorant opinions as to why you my readers should stay away from this evil persuasionartiost blog.
Isn’t it interesting that these are all persuasion methods? Not very artful ones, but think about that. They are using their language to persuade me to believe what I am teaching is wrong, unethical, or to stop writing about it etc.
Interesting, isn’t it that they are doing the very thing that they are telling me to stop doing.
“Without a trace of irony I can say I have been blessed with brilliant enemies . . . I owe them a great debt, because they redoubled my energies and drove me in new directions.” -Edward O. Wilson
Obviously I understand their complaints. Naturally this is not a blog on arts and crafts. I know what I blog about is controversial and I know I talk about things that ruffle people feathers. But just because their feathers are ruffled doesn’t mean I don’t have the right to stand my ground.
Here are some of the emails some of these people are using to persuade me to stop blogging about persuasion.
“What you call rapport I call manipulation!!!” –random angry internet lady
“Hmmm… Some of these ideas seem dangerous and immoral (manipulative) such as the hypnotic pattern speaking. However despite that there are good tips on subtle ways of building a real (not manipulative and controlling) rapport with someone.” –random logical, but ignorant internet guy
“I don’t like nlp, and as for me that is really stupid to use these techniques. You think too much and don’t know how to feel. That won’t make you happy… -Random person from the internet that seems to have confused NLP with cocaine… who probably looks like this guy:
Okay okay, I’m having too much fun with this, back to business.
So, my critics are accusing me of being in the business of manipulating people, as if it’s bad thing. To address this, let’s take a look at what our friends over at Merriam Webster Online have to say about manipulation.
Manipulation: 1: to treat or operate with or as if with the hands or by mechanical means especially in a skillful manner 2 a: to manage or utilize skillfully b: to control or play upon by artful, unfair, or insidious means especially to one’s own advantage 3: to change by artful or unfair means so as to serve one’s purpose
Let’s now take a closer look at manipulation. By breaking the definition down piece by piece to see if it is indeed what this blog is about or not.
1: to treat or operate with or as if with the hands or by mechanical means especially in a skillful manner
In other words, it is manipulative to use your words or actions with intention of getting a result with others.
I have said it before and I will say it again, every human that breathes is in the persuasion business. Whether you are a salesperson who is dropping price to close a deal or a baby crying to persuade your Mother to feed you, you are manipulating. Whether you are using controversial persuasion tips that borderline the dark side or giving someone a compliment because you want them to like you, you are manipulating.
If you live on the planet Earth you are in the business of manipulating people.
2 a: to manage or utilize skillfully
Nothing in negative in here, although I do like this part of the definition of manipulation. I love the word skillfully. Skill presupposes experience in practicing proven methods of an art.
Wouldn’t it be nice if persuasion was a trained and perfected skill rather than something that happens by chance? Wouldn’t it be nice to be so good at persuasion that you would have a measurable and predictable outcome with influencing others? I love this game
b: to control or play upon by artful, unfair, or insidious means especially to one’s own advantage.
Here we go, the bad stuff. I can understand people resenting me for teaching something that gives persuaders an unfair advantage. Although when you have these unique persuasion skills on this blog you will have an unfair advantage in the sense that you will be able to smoke the competition.
The keywords of this definition are unfair and insidious, so let’s take a closer look at both of these words.
Unfair: 1. Partial: showing favoritism 2. Not fair; marked by injustice or partiality or deception; “used unfair methods”; “it was an unfair trial”; “took an unfair advantage”
The favoritism part obviously holds no weight in this argument so we won’t address that, but let’s talk about the deception part.
Persuasion is not lying to get what you want. The persuasion techniques that I teach even controversial strategies of covert hypnosis do not employ deception. I don’t condone lying; in fact I have a post on how to be a human lie detector. Persuasion Artists don’t lie, we influence.
Insidious: 1. Beguiling but harmful; “insidious pleasures” 2. Intended to entrap 3. Working or spreading in a hidden and usually injurious way; “glaucoma is an insidious disease”; “a subtle poison”
Ah so perhaps my opponents see persuasion artists blood thirsty Vampires luring in with our beauty in charm and then sucking the life away from our prey. Can persuasion be used for evil? Yes it could be, but that’s not what I do, and that not what I blog. I even have a disclaimer that warns people to not harm others.
And since when is gaining rapport and creating powerful connections harmful?
Forget about the methods of persuasion, for get about the embedded commands, the hypnotic language patterns, and the anchoring and all the NLP stuff for one second and look at what is underneath the methods. What is the outcome of these methods?
When I use persuasion the outcome is: a. Powerful human connection b. Positive human emotions c. Clarity in decision d. Positive expectation of actions
I can already hear them through my computer. “Wait Bill hold the phone! You are teaching these hypnotic language patterns that are unnatural to speak in, and since people don’t talk like that normally its unfair and manipulative because its hypnosis.”
Well at one point in your life speaking at all was unnatural and you learned to that did you not? Using hypnotic patterns isn’t something odd or foreign you are introducing to the brain. One of the most prominent purposes of the subconscious mind is to recognize patterns.
Our brain is internally programmed through association. Since we were born our brain starts to recognize pattern of stimulus through our senses. Pattern is defined as a repeated form of something. When something is repeated frequent enough our brain recognizes it as a pattern.
Once a pattern is recognized, our brain will try to associate it with something. It can be a feeling or biological response. Part of this what we call learning process, which also serves partially as safety mechanism for us. – Self Improvement Through Technology Blog
Because of this when you speak using patterns you are not speaking unnaturaly, actually you are speaking more organically.
I believe that persuasion and conversational hypnosis are not only one of the best ways to communicate with people; but I find it to be the way that people were designed to communicate together.
When you communicate with someone using some of the persuasion strategies of NLP and hypnosis, you are communicating with a person’s whole mind consciously and unconsciously.
It’s the difference between just talking with someone and truly communicating with all parts of someone.
There is nothing harmful in talking to someone in the way their brain was designed to process communication.
3: to change by artful or unfair means so as to serve one’s purpose
My own definition of persuasion almost matches this one, but with a little tweak that makes a huge difference in results.
Persuasion: to change by artful or skillful use of language, actions, and energy so as to serve the purpose of both parties. -Bill Alexander
Is it possible to persuade someone to do what you want and also get them what they want?
Only a fool would say no to that. With persuasion in dating, sales, relationships, etc. there is always a middle ground where both can win.
What if you are using persuasion to sell them a product that will really help a person that you KNOW is the best?
Who is doing who the favor?
“Oh if it was a great product them they wouldn’t need to be persuaded.”
A flawed premise, because if people only took action because it was good for them, everyone would be rich, skinny, healthy, happy and fulfilling their life purpose.
Sadly and truthfully we are creatures of habit, or pattern. And sometimes we need someone to come along and persuade us artfully and skillfully so as to change that pattern.
So am I manipulating people by using my methods?
Based on my definition of manipulation, hell Yes!
Are my methods dangerous, immoral and vile?
Hell no!
I’m still waiting for someone to artfully and effectively persuade me that my art of persuasion is evil. So far the people who have been emailing me in an attempt to persuade this Persuasion Artist to not use persuasion evidently need to work on their persuasion skills.
HEY! What are Your Thoughts About Persuasion and Manipulation?
Leave Me A Comment and Lets Chat
I have been getting some interesting emails from my readers about the robber in Italythat supposedly hypnotized the cashier into giving him money from the register.
Some of you want to know if this is really possible.
I mentioned how Italian police are looking for a man, who robbed supermarkets by hypnotizing the checkout staff into giving him money. See the video for yourself.
He waited until he got to a female bank clerk and, according to the video footage, appears to hypnotize her into handing over more than £600.
He then calmly walked out.
The cashier who was shown the video footage reportedly has no memory of the incident. She only realized what had happened when she saw the money missing.
The question of the week is is this type of hypnosis possible?
there is another video on youtube you can watch called The Heist where Derren Brown used hypnotic technique to influence three people to rob an armed guard, only using covert hypnosis strategies.
The catch is that was after selecting the four most suggestible people out of twenty participants, and many days of covery conditioning and programming.
Then out of those four three of them actually went through with it.
So yes, it is “possible” to manipulate people to do dangerous or devious things with hypnosis.
At the same time, I question if this is what happened in this news story with the robber and the cashier in Italy, because it would be EXTREAMLY difficult to hypnotize someone like this.
Something similar was reported a while back with a bank robber hypnotizing a bank staff into giving over money. Turns out that the “staff” that was allegedly “hypnotized” was in on it from the beginning and were prosecuted.
Whether the Italian Job is b.s. or genuine hypnotic phenomena it is despicable and this type of propaganda gives legitimate hypnotists a bad name.
This is a long one guys, but if you are new to the realm of covert hypnosis and persuasion this will give you a good foundation to start from. We will talk about the differences between therapeutic hypnosis, and conversational hypnosis. What is trance? How hypnotists uses trance. Why covert and conversational hypnosis works? Where did conversational hypnosis come from? Plus a little about the ethics of conversational hypnosis.
In order to understand covert hypnosis, we must understand hypnosis, and to understand hypnosis, we must understand trance.
What is trance?
Trance is simply a narrowing of focus on one thing, such that the world around you begins to fade away, and you become entranced in the message or image you are focusing on.
You go into and out of trance every day.
Remember in school when the teacher would be talking in front of the class and while a part of you knows you are in a classroom sitting at a desk and you know the teacher is talking, mean while another part of you might be deeply daydreaming.
And of course there are different ways to daydream. There is the quick thought of maybe a conversation you had earlier where you just aren’t paying attention to the teacher, but then there are those daydreams where you go off for minutes into a your own little world. And the more you imagine those images inside yourself the more the rest of your environment begins to fade away and disappear to the point where the teacher could even say your name to make sure you are paying attention and you don’t even hear her.
We all do things like this when we are driving, when someone is talking but or mind is preoccupied, when someone attractive walks by, when watching a movie. You also narrow your focus and go into a trance when you are having sex, or a roller coaster rides, or when you get very scared. These are trance states, these in a sense are all forms of hypnosis. Thinking of examples like this, where we zone out, or zone inward rather, causes you to understand hypnosis and trance even more.
A Hypnotists Trance:
Now, naturally when most people think of hypnosis they think of the guy with a watch swinging it back and fourth in front of someone face or those hilarious spinning spirals we have all seen in the movies.
A hypnotist job is to create or induce a trance in you. Most hypnotists use language in a way that helps someone enter a trance state. A hypnotist gets someone to relax using suggestions and commands to relax, followed by language that allows you to focus on imaginary things that allow you to go deeper into trance.
Why does hypnosis work?
Why are hypnotists able to help people to change bad habits like smoking, help people overcome phobias, and make people dance like Brittany Spears in front of an audience of strangers?
Research has show that people are highly suggestible when in a trance state. Meaning a hypnotist can get people to do things they might not normally do, here’s how that worls.
You have two main components of your mind, the conscious and the unconscious.
The conscious mind
The conscious mind is the part that is awake and aware. It’s the rational, problem side of your mind. It is the part that controls your speech center and gives you things to talk about and communicate with others.
The Unconscious mind
The other is of your mind is the unconscious mind. Some people call this the subconscious or your other than conscious mind. The unconscious mind controls all your sensory perceptions, as well as other bodily function like breathing, heart rate, etc. You unconscious mind also controls long term memory, and the heart of your emotions.
While we would like to think that we are in conscious control, most of what we do is by habit or unconscious responses. The unconscious mind is the part that is really in control, it dictates most all of what we do. There is a lot of science to back this up. I just found an article on wired titled Brain Scanners Can See Your Decision Before You Make Them where scientists are now saying that every decision you make has already been made by your unconscious mind long before you even realize it is what you want to do.
Think of the unconscious mind as the cruise control in a very powerful that most people can’t turn off. I don’t like that metaphor because it sounds like we have very little power over our mind. But in reality most people, who procrastinate, who fail at diets, who cant stop smoking is how we see evidence of this in all of our lives.
Now along the same lines of the metaphor, what a hypnotist does is he is able to take control of the car and drive you to where you wan to go. Perhaps to the place of freedom from addiction or a phobia.
Covert and Conversational Hypnosis
A scum sucking bastard would use these same skills to selfishly take you where HE wants to go, despite your best interests. Yes these people are out there. See my warning and disclaimer for more on this. Police in Italy are currently looking for a thief who allegedlyhypnotized a cashierinto giving him money from her register.
An ethical persuasion artist, like myself and hopefully all of my readers, takes control of the car and takes you to a place that you BOTH want to go. Perhaps a business transaction that is a win win for all involved. I have learned with Kenrick Cleveland and he has my highest recommendation on how to use these powerful skills with integrity
Covert and conversational hypnosis is using your verbal and non-verbal language in every day casual conversations to lead the unconscious mind into making a new decision or coming to a new conclusion. So artfully that only an expert would know you are doing something, underneath your words.
Covert and conversational hypnosis is based much on the work of Dr. Milton Erickson. Dr. Erickson has been dubbed the grandfather of modern hypnosis and some say the greatest hypnotist there ever was.
As the ledged has goes, Dr Erickson was a psychiatrist who wanted to use hypnosis on his in his psychiatry practice; the only problem was it was illegal for Doctors to use hypnosis with patients.
Knowing the immense power hypnosis bad beyond psychiatric treatments, good Doctor then went on to develop a system to hypnotize patients just by talking to them!
Covert Hypnosis Was Born
This method he created paved the way for modern hypnotherapy and was later modeled by Richard Bandlerand John Grinder to help build the fundamentals of Neuro Linguistic Programming or NLP.
Bandler and Grinder were some of the first trainers in this new form of powerful communication, going on to training top sales people, managers, and politicians. Today there are NLP, covert hypnosis, and persuasion through conversational hypnosis trainings around the world.
People get attached emotionally to physical objects all the time. We do this often with objects that hold sentimental value. Imagine what it would be like if you could trigger these intense emotions in others and naturally, easily, and all the time.
Now imagine what it would be like if you could make your prospect attach strong emotions of pleasure and desire to your product?
With persuasion and covert hypnosis that’s what happens with anchoring physical objects.
It happens when you elicit a feeling and anchor it to a physical object, so that every time your subject becomes aware of the object they feel the emotion you elicited.
Here is a videowhere you will see Kim McFarland anchor strong emotions to sugar packets.
2. Like Me Hate Them
This one is easy and completely covert and very simple. Elicit a bad emotion anchor your competition in it. Elicit a good emotion place yourself or your product in it. Here’s a video of Tom Vizinni demonstrating this one:
3. Anchoring Amnesia
I believe this anchoring strategy is from Kenrick Cleveland’s off the market Dark Side of Persuasion course. The Dark Side was a controversial course where Kenrick teaches persuasion strategies that could cause serious harm to people. Kenrick also made purchasers sign an agreement that they would only use the Dark Strategies as self-defense only.
Anchoring amnesia is probably less practical of a skill unless you just want to just f*ck with people. Some find it humorous others find it cruel. This is the only one of the bad ass anchoring strategies I would advise against using. Read my Warning and Disclaimer before watching this video of Kendrick Cleveland displaying anchoring amnesia.
4. The Swish Pattern
The NLP swish pattern is a strategy of anchoring similar to the “Like me, Hate Them” strategy above. With the swish pattern you elicit a feeling of uncertainty in your subject and then elicit a feeling of absolute certainty. Next, you fire the anchor when you speak of something you want them to be certain of or uncertain of.
For example is sales, you could make your client uncertain about your competition or make them absolutely certain that your product is the best for them.
In the following video world famous mentalist, and my hero, Derren Brown uses this type of anchoring it to make a woman forget the color of her car.
About a year ago I told my mom I wanted to be a hypnotist
“Hypnosis?! So you are learning to manipulating people!?” She said.
This is the response you get from a lot of people when you use the term hypnosis or especially covert hypnosis.
I blame Hollywood for the broad misconception of hypnosis, as well as old cheesy hypnosis ads from the early 1900s. Because of this most people think of covert hypnosis as mind control, making people do things against their will, manipulation, and brain washing.
So what’s the difference between manipulation and covert hypnosis or persuasion then?
Manipulation is when you are using tactics that are can be destructive and or “feel bad” to the person you are trying to influence. You see examples of this every day.
You see manipulation it in relationships all the time, you see it in businesses like network marketing companies, cults, churches, and the Military, even in social circles with little children on the play ground
Manipulation usually sounds something like this:
If you leave the group you won’t have our love anymore, or Gods.
Our select group is right and everyone else is wrong and stupid, so if you leave us you are wrong and stupid too.
If you play with that kid you can’t be a part of our special club.
If you break up with me no one will love you ever again.
If you go learn from that teacher I won’t be your teacher anymore.
Those are all simple examples of manipulation.
The major difference between manipulation and persuasion is that manipulation could never possibly have the other person’s interests at heart. Yes of course someone could use covert hypnosis unethically, but covert hypnosis or strategic persuasion can be used for the other persons benefit when used ethically. Manipulation can never used to benefit anyone but the manipulator.
What is covert hypnosis or conversational hypnosis?
Hypnosis is direct communication with the subconscious mind. The persuader knows that this is the part of the mind that makes most of the decisions anyway. Most of what people do is an automatic response rather than a logical rational; there are a lot of studies to prove this.
Even the most basic sales training will teach that people buy for emotional reason and back up their decision with logic.
I won’t get into any specific strategies- but I will say that covert hypnosis is strategically using language, vocal tonality, and non-verbal communication to elicit a state from someone, and connect that state with a specific person, place, thing, or idea.
I could use covert hypnosis to influence my little brother to get better grades.
I can help my friends overcome fears.
And of course I can use it to get people to buy things from me.
Persuasion in essence is capturing and leading a person’s imagination.
If I am providing someone with something that they want is it really that manipulative?
Of course not.
And it wont feel like the person is being deceived or I am forcing my will on them like a high pressure salesman but a person who opens them up to even more new possibilities and options. That’s what all conversational hypnosis is about, giving people more options than they are giving themselves.
If you can make people feel really good with just your words and you look out for others interests you aren’t a manipulator-you have a gift. If you can make a customer who is not having fun shift their mood such that they want and are excited about your offer AND you can deliver it who is doing who the favor?
It’s not important that you think about this in a way that you automatically fall into agreement with my views on persuasion, only do it as naturally and easily as it makes sense to you. Because the more it makes sense to you the more you find reasons of your own to learn more about this fascinating information. Reasons that will really benefit you and allow you to feel really good.
Hello, my name is Bill "Persuasion Artist" Alexander. I am an avid student of persuasion and Influence.
I have a strong fascination for the mind, and I am passionate about the words, actions, and energies that influence the minds of others.
This is a blog of my insights on capturing and leading the imaginations of others using psychology, hypnosis, NLP, suggestion, and subconscious communication. I’ve been called a genius and I’ve been called dangerous.
All powerful forces can be used for good or evil. I encourage my readers to use these strategies for good and not in a harmful and manipulative way. Please see my Warning for more on ethics and persuasion.
Keep an open mind, feel free to ask me anything, I respond to all comments quickly, and I encourage and welcome intelligent discussion and debate. The content here is all free, so enjoy.
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photo credit: Dath Vader Wants You
I have been getting some interesting emails from my readers about the robber in Italythat supposedly hypnotized the cashier into giving him money from the register.
