I had a quick read of Dave's latest blog on Yelp. I noticed the last para when he mentions he is reading a new book 'Drive' is in a slightly larger font than the rest of the piece.

I clicked the given link to the Amazon sales page, 30+ 5 star reviews, but what caught my eye was that the Amazon address seems to contain a reference to 'Bold Approach'-----------a question for the more internet marketing savvy, would this be an affiliate link where Dave gets paid for anyone buying the book from his link?

Hmmm.... could this be what you're talking about, Stoic?

[[url=https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/join/compensation.html?ie=UTF8&pf_rd%5Ft=501&pf%5Frd%5Fm=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf%5Frd%5Fp=&pf%5Frd%5Fs=assoc-center-1&pf%5Frd%5Fr=&pf%5Frd%5Fi=assoc%5Flandingpage%5Fgraphic]Amazon.com - Associate Compensation Overview[/url]]

...even many of the small-time local hypnosis people have been infected by the virus of covert persuasion hypnotherapy, they all read up on what's going on. They might not have books for sale, but some of them, even unconsciously, put in suggestions that encourage their own objectives.
Even small time local people like to have regular clients, that get an "urge to keep coming back".

So its something to always watch out for.
When proper hypnosis is happening, a person is going to have amnesia for parts of it, if not all of it. Amnesia can be added by the hypnotist, so you can't watch out during hypnosis.

So at minimum make sure to RECORD every single session, and check it over very carefully to make sure everything is ok.
It scary that people walk in blind to hypnotherapy, and go into a trance, and just let the hypnotherapist do whatever they want.
With cognitive therapy one is able to consciously process the information being shared, but with hypnotherapy that doesn't happen.

From someone with many years experience, a person would have to be really reckless to allow any type of random local hypnotist mess around in their mind. It should be treated with the same diligence as selecting a surgeon.
Personally, at this point the way things are in hypnotherapy, its reasonable to avoid all hypnotists and hypnotherapists, except for perhaps a local person one has checked out very carefully for a long period of time. There are some licensed psychologists, for example, who do it right.

Frankly, the risk is not worth it for most people, and personally I would not recommend it anymore to anyone, too many covert little semi-pro NLPers running around, they are everywhere, in every town.
Even Boise Idaho.

But of course each person has to figure out what is right for them.

And its not just hypnotists who are selfish or manipulative, many are just totally incompetent! And can insert bad suggestions that can cause more problems for people, be self-defeating with junky beliefs.

Its sorta like a meat factory, once you know how a sausage is made, you lose your appetite for it, and prefer to cook your own meats.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2010 06:42AM by The Anticult.

Yep, if the person's amazon affiliate ID is on the link, then if you buy the book, they get a commission, and make $$.
The amazon ID can be something like their website name, or name.

So lets see....you strongly shill for books, where you make a commission if people buy from your link, without telling them.
And the books are full of 5 Star shill reviews from other cross-marketing affiliates, who are cross-shilling eachothers books and products, through affiliate links.

Its like some type of internet bubble, shillers trading shills for shillers, to try and dupe the public.
The gaming of the Amazon reviews is down to a science at this point.

Quote
Stoic
I had a quick read of Dave's latest blog on Yelp. I noticed the last para when he mentions he is reading a new book 'Drive' is in a slightly larger font than the rest of the piece.

I clicked the given link to the Amazon sales page, 30+ 5 star reviews, but what caught my eye was that the Amazon address seems to contain a reference to 'Bold Approach'-----------a question for the more internet marketing savvy, would this be an affiliate link where Dave gets paid for anyone buying the book from his link?

Quote
The Anticult
The gaming of the Amazon reviews is down to a science at this point.

Fortunately, some realistic Amazon reviews DO make it through.

Example: a 1-star review of The 168 Hour Week: Living Life Your Way 24-7 by Kevin Hogan

(I'm picking a review of this book because it's a recent one by Kevin Hogan, and he and Lakhani are soon appearing in an event in Vegas.)

Quote:

Save Your Money - Misleading, poorly written, needs an editor, December 11, 2009
By Kim Skildum-Reid "Author, speaker, consultant" (Sydney, Australia)

I bought this book on the basis of all of the stellar reviews, but now that I've read it, I have to agree with my fellow 1-star reviewer that all the positive reviews must have been a set-up by the publisher. This book really blows.

On the subject of the content, it's okay - nothing novel or particularly insightful. Other authors have covered the same ground and done it better. I think there are a lot of self-promoting, misleading chunks of "advice" throughout. My personal favourite is "the $100,000 idea". The author starts the chapter by telling you that for the first time ever, he's providing a $100,000 idea. I get to the end of the chapter, and I'm thinking, "okay, so where's the idea?" I went back through and found it: If you write a book and sell 100,000 copies, and you get $1 per copy from your publisher, you've got $100,000. Okay, that's not a $100,000 idea, that's just basic math. And as an author of three top-rated marketing books myself, I can tell you, that's no mean feat.

As for the book production, all I can say is holy cow. The book is poorly written to a degree that is rarely found in widely distributed books....

....I have read the whole thing, but wish I hadn't. I'm on an extended holiday in a non-English speaking country and it's one of the few English language books we have with us, so I persevered. I'm ruing the day I chose this book over almost anything else in my to-read pile!

[[url=http://www.amazon.com/168-Hour-Week-Living-Life/product-reviews/1934266140/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&filterBy=addOneStar]www.amazon.com[/url]]

Re: hypnotherapy, I'd say the bigger problem is incompetence. But yea, buyer beware for sure.

"Its sorta like a meat factory, once you know how a sausage is made, you lose your appetite for it, and prefer to cook your own meats."

Funny analogy because I was a vegetarian for many years due to finding out how meat is made. :) Yea, I can understand the disgust once your eyes are open to the nasty business that creates sausages (or NLP/hypnosis/LGATs/persuasion/cults).

"even many of the small-time local hypnosis people have been infected by the virus of covert persuasion hypnotherapy"

Virus is a good way to put it. We need more anti-virus programs like the threads on this forum.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2010 11:13AM by buffman.

Its very interesting, the analysis of Dave Lakhani. His name came up in the context of other sleazy covert persuaders like Alex Benzer (Ali Binazir) [forum.culteducation.com] and James Arthur Ray, and Michael Beckwith from The Secret.

Dave Lakhani was basically chosen at random to analyze. He tries to make you believe he is teaching people about cults, covert persuasion, and how to protect themselves from getting exploited, but it doesn't hold up to analysis. As at most, he reveals only a few techniques that can be found from better sources. And at the same time is running many manipulative patterns to try and make money off you, by luring you into expensive private Inner Circle coaching. And only a small amount of research into his claims, shows that basically none of them stand up to factual reality.
They are made up marketing stories and fabrications. That is how these guys play the game, concoct big fat fake marketing stories, and try to sell it to the public. It seems to not occur to them that such extensive bullshitting is eventually going to be exposed, and then backfire.

But one could pick at random from the huge amount of other similar players out there, nd get the same results. If one looked into Kevin Hogan more closely, it would get far worse.

Dave Lakhani is very closely tied to Kevin Hogan ideologically.
Kevin Hogan has written that he believes that hypnotic suggestions have to be SEEN to have come with a "good intent" or they won't be accepted by the unconscious. This is why he and Lakhani constantly harp about their alleged "good intent", and try to persuade you they are holier and more pure than Mother Theresa, to try and get your unconscious to accept their suggestions. Its a conscious tactic to manufacture instant rapport.

At the same time, Kevin Hogan actually says he believes that selfishness is good, which is the same as Greed Is Good.
Kevin Hogan is an aggressive and manipulative salesman, that is what he does. He's not even that accomplished at "hypnosis", its more just about him using every trick out there to try and sell stuff.
For example, his book...
Through the Open Door: Secrets of Self-Hypnosis (9781565547858): Kevin Hogan, Mary Lee Labay

That book is very very poor, with not much about self-hypnosis in it. The only chapter with a little meat is on pain relief, and that is written by a guest writer, the rest is bad fluff, literally 5th rate photocopies of other's material, if that. They throw in some basic NLP taken from some intro books.
Of course on Amazon, they have their standard shill reviews, but there is one honest review from someone who actually has some knowledge, and sees Kevin Hogan for what he is.
A sham.
All Kevin Hogan is able to do is try to convince people to buy his stuff.
He tells you if you are fat, he can make your thin, if you buy his stuff.
Kevin Hogan is going to take more looking into.

__________QUOTE excerpt__________________
Through the Open Door: Secrets of Self-Hypnosis (9781565547858): Kevin Hogan, Mary Lee Labay
[www.amazon.com]
No secrets here, February 26, 2002
By ******

I found this book disappointing, and I think the title is misleading. The book contains a lot of NLP exercises and visualisations, a lot of exercises from what you might call the list-making school of self-help, and a remarkable amount of extraneous advice such as the advantages of having your hair coloured as you get older and a truly astonishing section on investment advice (in a book on hypnosis?), but very little solid information on self-hypnosis techniques. In general I found the inductions sloppy and too short, with little or no trance-deepening or testing, and while they use some hypnotic language, there is almost no advice on how to actually speak the inductions. As for solid instruction on induction, deepening, testing of trance, ideomotor techniques, hypnotic language, anchoring, post-hypnotic suggestion etc - forget it. If these techniques occur, they are used in passing and not explained.
Furthermore, the writing style is poor and often unclear, and the book does not appear to have been proof-read - far too many typos and spelling/grammar errors - all of which contributes to the general impression of a sloppily written book slung together in a hurry.

A personal objection of mine is that the book also promotes an unhealthily self-obsessed philosophy; altruism, it seems, is A Bad Thing. The authors do not appear to realise that there is a vast and profound difference between giving and being taken! It comes as no surprise to find a reference to Ayn Rand in the bibliography.
... I think there is much better information available on the web, much better presented, and for free. I certainly didn't learn any secrets from it.
________________________________________

Quote
The Anticult
But one could pick at random from the huge amount of other similar players out there, and get the same results. If one looked into Kevin Hogan more closely, it would get far worse.

I'm no expert in hypnosis or NLP or persuasion.... but I can give an honest reaction to a YouTube of Kevin Hogan I watched. I was rather turned off by something he did. It happened quickly, but I definitely noticed it.

This is the video: [[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WcEUT_coQ8]YouTube: Kevin Hogan and the Persuasion Power of Identity[/url]]

The thing that bothered me happened in the first 20 seconds of the video. I'll quote Kevin and note some behavior:

“We’re very much of the same mind when it comes to integrity.”

Kevin sees an audience member laughing -- maybe they're laughing at his claim re integrity? -- and rapidly addresses him/her:

“You’re laughing. What, are you having a good time, or what? Stop it. Don’t do that.”

Then he laughs like he's just joking, but I didn't find it funny. It seemed like he was putting the person in their place. Like he was establishing Alpha-dog dominance. Like, how dare you laugh at my "integrity".

"Stop it. Don't do that."

Dude, they were laughing. Why try to squelch that?

Yuck.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2010 11:25PM by helpme2times.

Quote
The Anticult
It would never cross Dave Lakhani's mind, that cross-shilling reviews on Yelp or Amazon is not only unethical, and against their policies, that it actually backfires.

I can't really know what does or doesn't cross Lakhani's mind, but I do know that there's now a statement appearing on his blog re possibly receiving payment in connection to the blog.

Way down at the bottom of his blog, it now says:

"The publisher of this blog may receive payment for some items reviewed or included in this blog and for advertising shown on the blog."

I don't recall seeing this statement before this forum published posts about "shilling" and related practices. I wonder if anyone else noticed the statement before today?

UPDATE: Google's cache currently shows that the statement was NOT there as of January 27, 2010.

[[url=http://74.125.113.132/search?q=cache:FJNdesGfk34J:boldapproach.typepad.com/+boldapproach.typepad.com&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us]74.125.113.132[/url]]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2010 12:04AM by helpme2times.

Its totally inadequate, after you get busted, to then put out a general statement saying the "publisher" might get paid for "reviews".
That is called shilling.
Proper, ethical and full disclosure requires those disclosures as they are happening, and what specifically is being shilled for.
The "publisher" is not being paid, the reviewer is, the person, and they have a name.
Its just more attempts at spin-control, persuasion and reframing.

To have been paid for a "review" and to have presented it as an actual review, its despicable. That is deceit.