Covert Persuasion Techniques

Two topics that have attracted a lot of interest ever since I brought the Keys To Power online in 2003 are hypnotism and covert persuasion techniques.

The Keys To Power system itself uses hypnosis for personal conditioning, but doesn’t really get into using hypnosis to influence others.  With the Keys To Power, we generally influence the outcome of various situations (including the behavior of others) by directing Spiritual Power to create the experiences we want.  However, this doesn’t stop us from looking into other systems that may make our lives easier, and being able to persuade other people to our way of thinking definitely makes life easier.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about some of the deeper, more obscure aspects of hypnosis.  This has been mostly to increase the effectiveness of the Keys To Power techniques and the hypnotic recordings I’ve been creating for our members here.  However, the course of this study has put me square in the middle of the covert hypnosis topic, and I must say, it’s extremely fascinating.

I’ve learned that my definition for hypnosis has been profoundly altered.  Hypnosis is not always about putting someone into a trance state, but simply a process of communicating with the inner mind.  This communication can be performed while the listener is in a completely normal, waking state of consciousness.

In fact, one of the most celebrated leaders in the hypnotic field (Milton Erickson – a name I recognized from earlier studies) used to practice psychological counseling using a radically different form of hypnosis in which the subject never knew they were being hypnotized.  Erickson, and his radically different form of hypnosis, became one of the sources for what is now known as NLP, or Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

NLP is used by many different types of people.  Psychologists, personal coaches (such as Anthony Robbins), business people, sales people, parents, and artist all use NLP to help them attain higher levels of personal excellence and to influence others to do the same.  The simplest description of what NLP is would be “a system of modeling excellence and setting triggers for recreating that excellence on command”.  As you can imagine, this requires a very complex and involved collection of techniques and processes.

Covert hypnosis (or the more socially acceptable term, conversational hypnosis) is about using identifiable language patterns to create a desired response in the listener’s inner mind.  Once you know these techniques, it is relatively easy to talk to someone about practically anything and have it be a hypnotic process.

For example, you can talk to a casual acquaintance about your job at the factory and end up with that person practically begging you to take them out on a date!  On the conscious level, you said nothing that would suggest that they should go out with you, but by the way you phrased things and how you said what you said, their inner mind not only received the implied suggestions, but responded by compelling them to act on those suggestions!

Imagine how much smoother your life will be with these techniques.  No more confrontations.  No more arguments.  The people in your life doing what you want them to do, and not because you are commanding their obedience, but because they feel an inner desire to do these things.

The techniques that I’ve found are not difficult to use.  They do take a little practice to perfect, but then again, anything worthwhile takes some practice to get right.  Part of the process is simply getting into the right mindset.  In classic sales training literature, the concept of the assumptive close comes the closest to the secret of conversational hypnosis.  When you assume that the person you’re talking to wants to follow your plan, you are much more likely to use the right phrasing in your speech.

For example, instead of saying “Do you think you might want to do this?”, you’re more likely to say “I’m really glad that you’re going to be doing this.”  Instead of saying “Would you like to purchase this?”, you’re more likely to say “Would you like to pay cash, or would using your credit card be easier?”  In both cases, the idea that the other person is going to follow through with your plans is assumed and included in the underlying meaning of what you said.  In conversational hypnosis, the underlying meaning carries most of the suggestive power.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg.  There are many more concepts that work together to create the irresistible power of conversational hypnosis.

Here are some resources for further study.

Offline:

Introducing NLP: Psychological Skills for understanding and influencing people – by Joseph O’Connor & John Seymour.  This is a fairly clear explanation of NLP which gives you a solid foundation for the topic.  Doesn’t address how to use the information to persuade others, but does talk about some of the basic concepts.

Unlimited Selling Power – by Donald J. Moine & Kenneth L. Lloyd.  This book covers how to use conversational hypnosis (at least in broad, general terms) in a sales situation.  Doesn’t get into using language patterns to embed suggestive commands, but is a very good resource for getting the client thinking about your product in very positive terms.

Online:

http://www.CovertHypnosis.net – Kevin Hogan wrote a great book on the underlying psychological principles that govern covert hypnosis.  Powerful stuff, but it falls down in the actual implementation of the principles.  For only $50, I do recommend it to those needing a low-cost resource.

http://TheUltimatePersuasionFormula.com – Kent Sayre is recognized as one of the leading experts on persuasion, and his course is a good one, at $200.  Well organized, but lacking in several key aspects.

http://www.power-persuasion.com – This website offers a few products, including a DVD set of videos from a seminar put on by NLP experts David Barron and Kent Sayre.  The material is good, and you get a chance to see some examples in a live situation.  Something that cannot be done in a book.  Available products range from $225 to $395.

http://www.covert-persuasion.com – This site focuses on how to become a controller of others. It teaches how to play with language patterns to persuade others subconsciously, and also about how to manipulate psychic energy as a sort of ‘double-whammy’. A $147 course that can be broken down into $24 modules.

http://www.sexualkey.com – This website focuses on using a few conversational hypnosis techniques for the purpose of seducing women. A $147 package that is professionally done, yet still focuses on only a few of the available techniques.

http://www.undergroundhypnosis.com – This website has a course on what they call ‘black ops’ hypnosis. The course includes 6 CDs, which makes it better than average, and at only $97.77, it’s a fairly good buy.

http://www.KeysToPowerPersuasion.com – I would not be serving you well unless I included my own course in this list.  After studying all of the above references and applying the techniques in my own life, I discovered that there was more to the science than what anyone else had written about.  Whether they just didn’t know the other things or had censored themselves from writing about them I don’t know.  What I do know is that the Keys To Power Persuasion course is the only course that is complete, concise, and well organized.  Priced low, you won’t go wrong by getting it.