another interesting thing about the Stever Robbins Manipulation 101.

There was speculation about why someone like Stever Robbins would make hundreds of posts on blogs like a SHAMblog? And those questions caused a bit of a firestorm.

But its explained even in his own basic Manipulation 101 and his Innoculations. [forum.culteducation.com]

QUOTE: "How to "pre-frame" the debate so that objections are impossible."

So trying to present oneself as an objective "skeptic" is a PRE-FRAME, as a way to try to make objections impossible.
And notice that Carol Skolnick also tried to use the SHAM book to promote Byron Katie. [www.blogcatalog.com]
This is similar to these new so-called Guru Busters, who are really just busting Guru's they don't like, and promoting their friends and associates Guru's and products. Its a tactic.

They deliberately try to Pre-Frame the debate, to make any objections impossible.
What they have forgotten though, is that not everyone is an idiot.
Not everything they learned from Richard Bandler works. Some of it backfires very badly when people see what's going on.

Why try to be a Master Manipulator and try to Pre-Frame the debate and "present your case in ways that lock people into your point of view, even if they disagree"?[www.steverrobbins.com]

They're talking about slipping embedded presuppositions into your communications, in a way that people don't notice consciously, to try and control how they perceive the situation, and get them into a Double-Bind using False-Choices, etc.

But guess what, it doesn't work on everyone. And when they finally find out what you did to them, you are roast duck, you are finished.
There is serious blowback, when someone finally shows them what has been going on, and that they have been played.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/2009 10:22AM by The Anticult.

There is a tiny hope, that maybe a couple of the old NLP-hypno-persuasion people will come forward and write a detailed book for the general public, explaining all of the persuasion techniques being used on them.
They could even make some decent money selling a book, that could help people see what is going on.
And they don't even have to mention any specific names.

But they are afraid to do that, as then they would be persona non grata with their associates.

But maybe somewhere out there is a Rebel with a conscience?

Here is an interesting short ( about 4 or 5 minute ) video of Derren Brown using conversational hypnosis to make people forget what train station they are getting off at.
[www.youtube.com]
(By the way, if I typed it wrong, you can find it by putting in Derren Brown, Train and youtube in google search; this video has an ad at the end; sorry; with a quick look, could not find a "clean" one..)

Maybe Anticult or someone else can add whatever I missed, but generally what he is doing it seems is this;
A version of "Hi where are you getting off, this is a nice safe documentary;is it OKAY if " ie:make the victim feel comfortable," I'm a harmless nice guy sitting next to you"

then a gentle prattle which includes a description of : "how easily trains of thought can be confused" or
"When you Think about it, it can be confused, so Thinking about it now"
or Ever had that experience 'tip of your tongue and when you think about it it just goes"

So he gets them to remember being confused.
And he is "anchoring" a "wave across the face"gesture with the feeling of being confused or "not knowing something but having it on the tip of your tongue"
and emphasizing that it happens when you "THINK" about it;
So he waves his hand across their face while asking them to "think" about it, having anchored the hand across the face wave,and the word "think " to forgetting.

(Am not sure if the wave across the face is also trying to direct the eyes to the place they go when a person is remembering being confused??)
Anyway, sure enough, most of the people have no clue where they are getting off. Feel sorry for the poor guy who missed his stop.

( The above small infomercial is dedicated to all those who believe that persuasion does not exist and that all decisions made are always entirely voluntary..)
Now if you want something really scary...put in google derren brown youtube mall arm.
But of course there is no such thing as group persuasion....Really.Uh Huh.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/2009 01:50PM by yasmin.

Oh yeah; they point out in the comments on the video that Derren Brown is saying STOP thinking about it NOW..
I'm probably missing a lot of stuff in there; but at least it gives an idea of the kind of embedded comments people can make,and very scary to see it in action.

'They may become dependent on the 'tech' because they lose patience, lose ability to negotiate openly with people, lose ability to tolerate the frustration of having someone say 'No' to them.'

'Long term, these mind technicians may become less able to enjoy peer to peer adult communication, because their normal communication skills atrophy over the years.'

The above observations may very well be true but for someone already targeted by one of these predators, or who has in the past been subjected to this predatory behaviour, focussing even to that small extent on the motivations of the predator keeps you, mentally, within the orbit of their control.

All of your capacities are needed for yourself, to focus on keeping yourself out of the clutches of these types. There is no smidgeon of sympathy or understanding for the sorry plight of the predator that will not be used against you.

Yes, these people probably were gaslighted themselves at an earlier time but the decisions they made and continue to make daily is to perpetuate that behaviour on new victims.
We, their potential new victims if we allow ourselves to be drawn in, cannot afford to sympathetically consider their stories or speculate about their possible motivations. Attempting to understand the predator and his motivations---why he does the things he does--- keeps the focus where he wants it, on his needs and wants and welfare, not on your own.

It is a mistake to hope for a Hollywood-style ending where the predator has a revelation and becomes a reformed character. The reason such dramas are successful is because it so seldom happens in reality. These dramas also play on wishful thinking and the idealistic dream of 'happy ever after.'
Much of therapy also attempts to go for reconciliation, teaching behaviour modification for the victim and setting the victim up for further victimisations. There is no peaceful co-existence with such predators, there is no negotiation with them, there will never be a peer-to-peer communication.

Sorry to bang on about this, but Anticult is quite right with the very scary tales of endless metacommunications being constantly given out by these people, that point cannot be emphasised enough.

Look at these covert messages and commands, be aware of them, learn to spot them but don't get bogged down in the possible motivations and personal histories of the person trying to use this covert coercive control on you. Figuring out why the person behaves the way they do is a distraction from what he is actually constantly doing, trying to exert control over your mind and feelings.

These people are a variation of human but if you have ever been within such an orbit, you cannot allow yourself to view them with any sympathy at all.

After all, they are viewing any interaction with you as a battle, a fight for your mind and soul, a game where winner takes all---the normal rules of engagement no longer apply for them, it is playing into their hands if you continue to apply such normal rules and sympathies when dealing with them.

Thanks Yasmin, for the video link.

Yeah, I had read about the fact that the subconscious doesn't know negation, so therefore, if you tell someone: don't think of a monkey, what the command actually is, is: think of a monkey.

BK often tells people during her talks: don't take my word for it, so here the command would actually be: Take my word for it. I am not a teacher, would be: I am a teacher.

This YouTube clip took me to a very aggressive advertising website. They sell a method called conversational hypnosis by Igor Ledochowski. They really have their marketing down, BK could probably learn a trick or two from them. When googling this Igor person, no matter where I clicked, sooner or later I always ended up at the same advertising website, only with different names. The Igor person himself is hard to find on the internet, only sites and forums that seem to promote him.

I am including some quotes from their ad, to illustrate how this all fits with Byron Katie, how it describes how she operates:

Quote

Now you can unleash your natural ability to:
Influence anyone to follow your lead. Get clients and customers to buy from you. Command new respect with everyone. Negotiate with stellar success. Compel colleagues to do what you suggest. Get just about anyone to “yes”. Have children and teens obey your commands. Keep your lover(s) eternally loyal. And best of all, they will thank you for the opportunity to do as you say.
If you've ever wanted people to immediately obey your commands without them even realizing what you're doing ...then this will be the most important message you ever read.
Why?
Because you've just stumbled upon the only proven, covert method for getting others to do as you say, whenever you want, wherever you want.
This method is so powerful, so unique and so under-the-radar that some downright criminal people are using it to rob banks and supermarkets without the cashiers realizing they are handing over the money to them. They don't even have any memory of doing it!
And once you're on the inside, see how easy it will be for you to capture wealth, health, power, respect, happiness... everything you want... FASTER than most truly successful people could ever previously have imagined possible.

It all gets so tricky. BK will say that she doesn't know what enlightenment is, but with this quote that is exactly what she promises people, provided they stay with the work of course.

Quote:
If you knew how important you are—and without the story you come to know it—you would fragment into a billion pieces and just be light.

It's both sad and interesting that that quote actually has an effect on me. It plays on my previous Eastern religion studies and I have to immediately shake it off. So, I imagine Katie having explosive diarrhea and shitting herself. That will work for the moment. Brings me to a question: I think it's important how TAC and others pick apart the techniques, after these things are quoted in this thread; they seem to have some effect, even when obvious, until they are placed under that high-intensity lamp of inspection and then dissected.

Another thing, as Stoic mentioned, it's easy for some of us (due to the early hard-wiring) to feel empathy for some of these chuckle-heads and be softened a little to their ploys. On reading corboy's very informative speculation about how these assholes got into--and stay in--the game they've made for themselves, I started seeing Steverino as a hall monitor, goofy looking nerd, smart kid in class with Coke bottle glasses, getting bullied by everyone at his school as a youngster. Instead of going the way of the Columbine kids, he maybe got into his profession to get even and do it in spades by taking everyone's money, too! As soon as I caught myself feeling so sorry for him that I was not holding him responsible for what he is doing right now, I imagined him being dragged into the boy's room by some bullies and getting the living crap beat out of him again.

These techniques for reframing users and players (that I am starting to feel empathy for) are necessary, but barely cut the mustard. I'm starting to see this bullcrap in play all over the media, billboards on the highway, over the TV and radio and coming out of the mouths of loved ones. Were it not for this thread, I wonder how alone I might feel.

qd

Just a quick comment, the stuff above by Yasmin about "losing your train of thought" is right on the money. More on that later.

This Igor Ledochowski sounds like a horrendous piece of work.
That "advertising blurb" is targeting people who have sociopathic and criminal intent, and is full of embedded commands. The overt text is not the real message, the real message is in the embedded commands...so that is where to do the analysis.

One thing to put into this thread, is to ask that no one buy ANY of these so-called "conversational hypnosis" products. For example, the advertising pitch above is full of EXAGGERATION and LIES, mixed in with more accurate claims.
That is intentional.
What they do, is they exaggerate what it can do, so they can charge more money for it. That is called making a Big Claim.
They have even inserted pathological and criminal fantasies into the advertising, to prey upon the darkest impulses of some people.
It is a scary thought that Igor Ledochowski must have found that putting that terrible stuff into his advertising increases sales. So it shows the kind of perverse "power fantasies" some people have.
Any actual "cult leader" would have those kinds of perverse fantasies of power over others beyond what a normal person could imagine.


So several things are going on there.

1) They are grossly exaggerating what they are talking about, simply to charge more money for it, and get more attention, and create controversy for free advertising.

2) Whatever that product is, BEWARE of it, even if one finds it for free on a Torrent network, or something. It is going to be full of techniques to get people to buy even more of their stuff. So one has to approach it like its radioactive.

3) there is a very good chance the material found in Igor Ledochowski products will be wrong, even deliberately wrong. Its the old "scam the wannabe scammers" scam. The bigger sharks eat the smaller sharks.


The reality is that these persuasion techniques are extremely powerful, but those who try to sell them use other techniques like exaggeration to try and sell them.
So those are not the people to learn the techniques from.

Its very tricky to learn how the techniques work these days, as there is so much distortion.
To be able to use them on groups of people is not easy to do, and takes many years of work.

So please, NEVER BUY ANYTHING from ANY of these conversational hypnosis salesmen. They are scamming the wannabe scammers. They won't "reveal" too much, as they will try to upsell people to more expensive seminars for that, and they will rob YOU blind. Just like the advertising says in its embedded messages.

This entire field makes the wild west look like Disneyland.
But probably the best way to learn the methods, is to go back to books and materials from decent sources that go back more than 10 years or so, before the outrageous internet hype started.
Please, NEVER attend any seminars with these people, or do "phone coaching" or anything else.

Their trick is to exaggerate and lie about the content of what they are doing, and that is just more conscious misdirection, while they do the REAL techniques to you!
They are using a false-content of their so-called "Ericksonian hypnosis", while doing the REAL stuff on people at the same time to extract money. Does that make sense?

Some people use "Advaita" as the front, while doing the persuasion techniques embedded in that.
Weirdly, these guys are using a false and incorrect "conversational hypnosis" hype to distract people, while they do the REAL more low-key stuff at the same time!
Hope that makes sense?

But these links to these new "conversational hypnosis" people are terrific, and are a good place to start looking at the specific techniques, including the technique of lying in their advertising, while doing the real techniques in plain-sight.
That is their common method.

They do TO YOU what they are talking about. Or sometimes do the opposite.

And the stuff about NEGATION is basically correct.
When someone says...I am not your Guru...they are essentially saying...I am your Guru.
Its negation, and also just reverse psychology.

Stoic, I think you're right.

Quote

Look at these covert messages and commands, be aware of them, learn to spot them but don't get bogged down in the possible motivations and personal histories of the person trying to use this covert coercive control on you.

Lots of abusers exploit the language of therapy to try to get the already battered victim to feel sorry for the abuser and then blame themselves.

Its a version of blame the victim and pity the perp.

Its like staying in a smoke filled room, trying to figure out the chemistry of what started the fire.

Run like hell, get out of the smoke before you black out and are incinerated.

Solve the chemistry of the fire after you're well away and breathing clean air.