A quick analysis of the book Subliminal Persuasion by Dave Lakhani.
There has been so much BS and deliberate confusion put forward around this issue and Dave Lakhani, when in reality its not that complicated.
The distortion starts right in the Preface to the book, where Lakhani redefines subliminal persuasion to be equated with propaganda, in the sense of causing a group of people to take actions designed by the persuader, not by the people themselves.
He then starts in pressing the buttons of fear again, saying the material is "frightening". Its all deliberate emotional manipulation by the author.
He says its manipulation if that is your "intent". This is wrong wrong wrong.
Does Lakhani know this is wrong? Or did he just mimick these concepts from Kevin Hogan or others? It does sound like he is just parroting the rationalizations from other mass manipulators.
Its is NOT about "intent", as anyone with the ability to think can understand.
Kevin Hogan, who hires Dave Lakhani at his seminars on Covert Hypnosis, has a 5 Star review at Amazon for this book. Does Kevin Hogan tell people he is biased and give full disclosure? Of course not. Just outright shilling for a business partner.
Kevin Hogan review of Subliminal Persuasion [
www.amazon.com]
Notice the "mistake" by Kevin Hogan in the review, where he says..QUOTE: "Maybe the hottest chapter is Creating a Cultic Following, followed immediately, interestingly enough by a chapter on Seduction."
That is not another "mistake"...that is DECEPTION. The Chapter is called Creating A Cult Following...not "cultic". Lakhani does not use the word cultic anywhere, in the index its the word cult. These guys are really off the charts, creepy and intentionally intellectually dishonest. One can't believe anything they say, due to the constant stream of bullshit.
Other Amazon reviews pick up on the BS...
QUOTE: "I've always relied on Amazon customer reviews before I bought books from Amazon. But numerous 5 star ratings of this book were actually submitted by friends of the author promoting the book. I'm disappointed and I won't rely on Amazon's customer reviews anymore."
QUOTE: "In short, full of generalizations, unsubstantiatied half-thruths and platitudes."
This nosnense about human "intent" is to create confusion they know many people are totally self-deluded.
Beyond that, some people think that committing robbery has a good intent, literally. They tell themselves, that insurance covers the robbery, and that the insurance company can raise premiums and make more profit, so that robbery is good for the economy. Many robbers tell themselves they are the good guys.
Intent is actually totally irrelevant. What matters is the consequences, what happens to the people.
So this Red Herring about intent, is just to give the mass manipulators a rationalization to do what they want to do.
Page XVI in Preface: Quote: "persuasion in all its forms is good" "subliminal persuasion is right".
He then uses the Gordon Gekko "Greed Is Good" speech, to say persuasion as good. He does it as an example, but also to persuade you that all persuasion is good. Where did he copy that trick from? Kevin Hogan?
He says CONFUSION is a powerful subliminal technique. He's good at that one, creating confusion.
Probably the biggest persuasion trick in this book, is how Lakhani tries to reframe all persuasion, especially his kind, as being "ethical". That is a tactic he is using.
He even admits he is using subliminal persuasion in the book, and then uses embedded commands from NLP to reinforce that again.
He describes tactics to use relationship models to modify core beliefs and ideas.
How to create Urban Legends and Stories, which in fact is how Dave promotes himself.
Soundbites, hooks, leveraging social proof, embed presumptions it is accurate, crafting stories, viral marketing of urban legends, manipulating episodic memory, message contagion.
Creating you own vocabulary, is something he talks about. This is what Lakhani does trying to reframe propaganda, persuasion vs manipulation, and the rest of it. Does it work? No, it doesn't, it backfires.
This is what he does with the word "ethics", just like Werner Erhard did with the word "Integrity".
Werner Erhard on Integrity, Morality, Ethics, Legality [
forum.culteducation.com]
He has a section on Edward Bernays, but there are many other books that cover Bernays in great detail, that are accurately researched, not a mess like in this book.
He talks about Storytelling, and creating your Persona and Legend, myth, hooks... The problem here is that when its full of lies, then it backfires on you, he left out that part.
QUOTE: "the best lie is 90% true". p 47
He talks about his alleged undercover police work, and creating identities. Frankly, it sounds like more bullshitting, like the guy who is a mall security guard who tells women in bars he is uncover for the FBI. The Story is not believable without hard evidence, and there is no evidence, just Stories about the Legend of Dave Lakhani. Not believable.
He gets into Emotional manipulation, Social Proof, getting endorsements, creating True Believers, programming beliefs, creating new persuasive beliefs, many humans want to be fooled.
He tries to modify your own beliefs about persuasion, so you'll think its wonderful, and come and attend his expensive seminars!
There is an entire chapter on manipulating the online world, blogs, video, teleseminars, using many techniques,which have been seen in this thread...subverting critical thinking, sensationalism sells, conversation domination, reputation management..
Creating and managing expectations, invite them into a fantasy world, lure them into the fantasy world you have created, make the buyer the Hero.
Control words and language, short phrases, consistency in your message, tell them what they want to hear, paint big word pictures.
He then adds a bunch of disinformation about Covert language, NLP hypnotic language patterns, embedded commands. Then suggests using Metaphors, which is also from the NLP persuasion game.
Chapter 10: Creating A Cult Following [
forum.culteducation.com] creating connectedness, exclusive access, identity, how to build the cult following, create the ideal worldview, make it fun, praise them (love-bomb), how to lead your cult, create a joint enemy and threat, create an inner circle from carefully selected members.
Chapter 11: Seduction, make your audience desire and fall in love with you, make them want more of you all the time, create tension and desire, intense longing, cause them to surrender. Salvation is their overriding need. Set up long term relationships using seduction. Present yourself as showing concern, compassion, access, as that is seductive.
Ben Mack does the Afterword. (Is he really a real "Dr" or one of those fake internet ones?)
But Ben Mack tells the reader that Dave has gone TOO FAR, and has armed the tyrants, and given info to be used by sick minds. He says the book is irresponsible.
Of course, that is just more PR and scare-tactics for his buddy Dave. There is no new information in this book, nothing.
And the Edward Bernays material has been out for years and decades, Ben Mack is either clueless, or is acting clueless, these guys are a bad joke.
Here is a book about Bernays and others from 1996:
PR!: A Social History of Spin By Stuart Ewen 1996 [
home.bway.net]
The book closes with a big shill for Coaching, which of course is a big cash-cow.
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SUBLIMINAL PERSUASION cross-post: [
forum.culteducation.com]
There is a book called Subliminal Persuasion Book By Dave Lakhani, and its sitting right here.
The Forword is by Kevin Hogan, the hypnotist and persuader. Even Kevin Hogan in the books intro tells you to "WATCH OUT...Dave might have a hidden agenda he isn't telling you about".
Well, someone is going to tell you about it.
First off, he is using that technique, of telling people to watch out, as a technique to build mystery in the reader. When a persuader tells you to watch out for the hidden agenda, then they are trying to give you a double-whammy mindfuck, as they know their audience is looking for that. Its a Red Herring for more misdirection.
He does the same thing in the book from page 1. One page 1, Dave Lakhani says his publisher refused to publish the REAL book he wanted to publish as it was TOO DANGEROUS, and made him publish a more lame one. (so you just bought a crappy lame book sucka!)
Do you believe that? Hopefully not. Its a tactic.
He wants it to sound like he wrote a banned book, and that the real edgy material is not in the book, as its too dangerous.
That way later, he can direct you to his "exclusive" group which pays lots of money to learn the alleged secret techniques of persuasion. (read his previous book to learn that specific technique)
So he's setting you up for that from the first page of the book, from first contact.
You are being primed to want to join up into the expensive exclusive group, to learn the real DANGEROUS techniques of mass persuasion, that are not in the book.
Who is that meant to attract? Its meant to attract the kind of people who want to be able to do that kind of exploitation and manipulation to people.
As has been said before, its the big sharks eating the little wannabe sharks for lunch.
He even says elsewhere he might REJECT you from the inner group, even if you have the money! (haha! that is another tactic from his other book, when you REJECT your clients and try to play hard to get). Dave is gonna take your money, you can take that to the bank.
This is why James Ray and Byron Katie target the NEW AGE audience, as they don't ask these kinds of questions. They just go into a deep-trance on command, and buy what they are told to buy.
But does not even scratch the surface of what is going down with this.
Its a shame some respected researchers don't carefully go through all of these advanced persuasion techniques, and write some textbooks explaining them in great detail, for the benefit of those who get exploited.
Until that happens, one has to get some info from those Blackbelt persuaders, who are kicking you in the head to knock you unconscious, at the same time supposedly teaching you persuasion techniques.
Its almost comical how without exception, as they are kicking you in the head to knock you unconscious, they are telling you that kicks to the head are not that powerful.
They are telling you that, so you don't duck.
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(cross-post) In the book Subliminal Persuasion, Chapter 10 is called: Creating A Cult Following.
[
forum.culteducation.com]
Dave Lakhani has a book called Subliminal Persuasion, with a website www.subliminalpersuasionbook.com
That website again, is full of persuasion tactics, many of them covert. Be extremely skeptical and analytical about every word, sentence, and claim being made.
In the book Subliminal Persuasion, Chapter 10 is called: Creating A Cult Following.
In that chapter, he deliberates puts in misleading info, equating a cult, with marketing of Harley Davidson and Jimmy Buffet Parrotheads, and making a mishmash of cults and branding. This idea of "cult marketing" is just copied from others, and there is quite a bit of disturbing writing in that chapter.
Its frankly disgusting how Lakhani made comments in this thread about people not knowing the difference between marketing and cults, when in fact the opposite is true. It's clear that Lakhani is the one who doesn't know the difference, and/or is deliberately creating confusion for his own purposes.
In the book, he says there is a link on his website called JOIN MY CULT.
He then uses truly manipulative methods to imply this is an "insiders" group that will "frighten" some people, but its the ONLY way to learn the POWERFUL techniques he teaches...but he says don't worry you are PERFECTLY SAFE, but you will be SHOCKED by his information.
You can see how perverse all of that is, a vulgar attempt at manipulation, that if tried in person could perhaps result in a glass of ice-water being poured over the manipulators head, to disrupt the process. The serious thing is many people will not see those tactics, and will fall for it, and get lured into this Lakhani "insiders group" which is a type of LGAT-like cultish group around a so-called covert persuasion teacher. That is what is being attempted.
Its an embedded command...JOIN MY CULT, guised with sarcasm, but then he manipulates the reader into thinking its a special insiders group with secret knowledge. He also uses his standard attempts at using FEAR and SHOCK.
He then closes with his other technique of saying you are "perfectly safe", which is the same drum he beats when he says you can trust his unverified claims.
You are NOT perfectly safe.
In fact, its the opposite, and there are very strong WARNINGS about the methods and tactics being used. The amount of outright BS found so far stinks to high heaven.
One can see even at the bottom of that website www.subliminalpersuasionbook.com he uses a very simple advanced technique...closing with..."Your friend"
Most people don't realize that the most advanced influence technique is to make your customers believe you are their BEST FRIEND. That is a fact. That is what is taught, and that is what he tries to do, also to try and make people "trust" him, while at the same time using FEAR tactics.
There are also direct commands on that website. Look at the top, it says...
ORDER THE BOOK!
And the word ORDER is in red and in bold, and its a command, an order. Dave Lakhani is ORDERING you to ORDER the book. That is a layered embedded and direct command.
No time right now to analyze the rest of that website and the book, but that will follow.
to the trained eye, there are about 100 red flags all screaming at once about the manipulation techniques being used by Dave Lakhani.
You are not "perfectly safe", far from it, quite the contrary.
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