[ NOTE: I am NOT recommending people purchase this book, or any book like it for obvious reasons of enriching the unethical authors. But they can be loaned from the library for purposes of study. Or one could theoretically even buy books like this using cash at a local large-chain bookstore with a return policy, have a look at it, and if you don't like it, RETURN it with some old fashioned BUYERS REMORSE, which drives salesmen like these authors insane. ]

There is a new book out called...COVERT PERSUASION (below)

There is a whole new area of books coming out about this subject area. The book is poorly written, and is just a rip-off of other books like it, but it does lay pretty bare what at least 50% of the process of the LGAT is, if not 95%.
The LGAT is a sales process, a process of Influencing you without your conscious awareness, Covert Persuasion. The process is to get you to buy their services-products for rip-off prices to make the LGAT owners rich quickly.

This book has "55 Covert Persuasion Tactics", which might turn up on the internet, and could be pasted into this thread.
He lists processes to circumvent Buyers Remorse, and all aspects of the Sales Process.

Guys like this are proud of what they can do to you, they are not ashamed. They are proud they can manipulate people without their consent.
This is the exact same process that Tony Robbins does to his followers, but he calls it Unconscious Influence.

In the end all it is, is Fancy Lying.
Lying to people in fancy ways, to get them to buy your stuff, and feel self-righteous about it.

This is a massive topic, and public education could cut these folks off at the kneecaps, as once you can see what they are doing to you, it doesn't work as well.

So feel free to add more books, links and information about this topic, and over time this thread might a lot of useful information collated into one area.

(here's the book linked below, please do NOT buy this book, it will only encourage more books, but most libraries seem to have it. Or one could even buy it with cash at a local chain bookstore with a return policy, have a look at it, and if you don't like it, RETURN it with some old fashioned BUYERS REMORSE, which drives salesmen-authors like these guys insane.).

Covert Persuasion: Psychological Tactics and Tricks to Win the Game (Hardcover)
by Kevin Hogan (Author), James Speakman (Author)

[www.amazon.com]
-----------------------
Search Index Keywords:
covert persuasion, persuasion tricks, persuasion tactic, option attachment, victim virus, anticipated regret, vocal stress, persuasion attempt, persuasion techniques, covert power, persuasion power

The book, and many others like it, are basically textbooks on how to run the sales process of an LGAT, formal and informal, and related professional sales activities.
These are textbooks for sociopaths.

[www.covertpersuasiononline.com]

Quote

How do you persuade another person to buy or try your product or service, contribute to your cause, or vote for your candidate?

Covert Persuasion has the answers that will help you get [b:a8ac1ad319]more of what you want[/b:a8ac1ad319], more often.

55 Covert Persuasion Tactics that you can choose from to have an immediate, positive, and lasting impact on your life and condition

27 Observations about people and how to [b:a8ac1ad319]Covertly Persuade them to accomplish YOUR goals [/b:a8ac1ad319]
[b:a8ac1ad319]Specific strategies for changing the beliefs of those around you to take the actions you want them to take … so you get more of the results you want [/b:a8ac1ad319]

The most persuasive WORDS to use to persuade others

20 keys to Covertly Persuade others using the power of Story …
How to skillfully use questions to persuade others … people are programmed to answer every question that is asked (even if silently) … [b:a8ac1ad319]you’ll learn how the right question controls and directs the thinking of others[/b:a8ac1ad319] … so you get more of what you want, more often

Emotional trigger points that you can [b:a8ac1ad319]Covertly use to get your way more often[/b:a8ac1ad319].

Okay, but for me the first question is why do people put themselves in the situation?
There are no cults or abusive groups without victims. Reading various posts on this board can be quite heart breaking, people who have already suffered a negative experience costing them years will ask "is this group okay?" or similar. For me this is the question, why would anyone, particularly if they already had negative experience, voluntarily put themselves in these situations?

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ughaibu
Okay, but for me the first question is why do people put themselves in the situation?
There are no cults or abusive groups without victims. Reading various posts on this board can be quite heart breaking, people who have already suffered a negative experience costing them years will ask "is this group okay?" or similar. For me this is the question, why would anyone, particularly if they already had negative experience, voluntarily put themselves in these situations?

Lucky you if, for whatever combination of nature and nurture, you have a more cautious demeanor, are more skeptical and suspicious maybe, or are more able to gauge the intentions of others.

Periodically, when I was younger, someone would come through our neighborhood and scoop up all the pets. Subsequently, it was found out that they were selling these animals to laboratories. It was a quick and easy way to make a few bucks. They didn't bother with the barkers, the hostile, the shy, or the frightened. Guess which animals they picked up?


Ellen

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why would anyone, particularly if they already had negative experience, voluntarily put themselves in these situations?

Depends on what you mean by 'voluntarily'.

According to what has been reported on this message board:

Many people get referred to 'these situations' by friends, rby elatives whom they trust. Most of us are trusting persons.

(Just as the animals easily scooped up by the bounty hunters in Elena's neighborhood were the trusting animals, not the shy or cautious ones)

How many of us are gonna question the word of someone we love? Many of these groups get people all hetzed up then send them out to recruit as many people they know as possible.

Two, others get involved because a partner or spouse has done the training, is pressuring them to do it and they're scared if they do not go along, they will lose their partner--and this is often a very realistic concern. A staggering number of persons who join the RR.com message board community are persons whose relationships have been disrupted because they refused to to join a group and were rejected by a friend or partner--or spouse who had become intoxicated by a group.

Others are seduced into it for lack of knowing the full facts. Many harmful ventures are packaged as job development trainings--in some cases people are pressured by bosses at work to do these programs. If you are under financial pressure to stay on a particular job, this is very hard to resist--and under such conditions, participation cannot be said to be voluntary.

Finally, most participants do not know, up front what goes in in these situations, or that the persons running them are not qualified professionals. They may not know that in some cases the group mahas have operated under a variety of names and may have garnered a bad rap.

It must not be forgotten that all of us, no matter how intelligent, well educated and independent we are, go through periods in life where we are off balance, vulnerable and need to rely on other people.

This happens when we are ill, when we are bereaved by losing someone we love through death, divorce, or if we have had to uproot and move to a new location where we have to rebuild friendships from scratch--eg moving to college, to a new location, or by becoming an immigrant or a refugee. We can be readily thrown off balance by poor diet, shame, peer pressure, and lack of sleep.

It is painful to face that we are not 100% autonomous, most of us prefer to deny it, and American culture makes a fetish of 'take care of it yourself.'

We do indeed possess agency and responsibility but the glory and the danger for us is that we are social creatures and deeply affected by social context, relationships, and by what kind of information is made available to us. Empathy and critical thinking are sophisticated functions that are easily disrupted by physical stress and psychological regression, and need ongoing maintainance, just as its necessary to maintain a regular fitness routine and good diet to keep the body in peak condition.

Often when we are recruited into dysfunctional groups or relationships, its in a set up where only a limited amount of information is made available to us, and the full information needed an informed choice is with-held from prospective recruits.

And...a very good early warning sign is any suggestion that people 'voluntarily' get involved with a situation in which the full nature of that situation is with-held from them.

When the conditions for informed consent are absent, there's no way someone can be said to participate voluntarily.

------------------------------------------------
Corboy-retired volunteer moderator

Uh...did you read the summary of that book?
The entire book is about learning how to manipulate people WITHOUT THEIR CONSCIOUS AWARENESS. Think about that, please.
These guys have dedicated their lives, to figuring out ways to dupe people and by-pass their critical faculties. Read their literature. They spell it out. They admit in this book they have libraries with hundreds of books on this topic.

They are out to persuade people to do what they want them to do, WITHOUT THE AWARENESS of what is being done to them.

You have given the typical response of the sociopath.
"Hey, if people are dumb enough to fall for it, then they deserve it".
But these guys go even further.
They do NOT believe in full-disclosure, or Win/Win. They say so.
They say they simply want to persuade others to do what THEY want them to do, for their own Selfish purposes.
He even says people are like oranges and pork bellies, they are just a commodity. That is what he says.

They hunt for naive people, and then trick them, and take the money and run. And this makes them feel superior.
It never occurs to them to do the opposite, to teach people Critical Thinking, or to be Honest, God forbid.

They specifically show people how to BY-PASS the critical faculties of the person, using hundreds of techniques. Get it? They have HUNDREDS of techniques they can use.

So its is absolutely nuts to say..."how come people voluntarily let themselves get tricked without their conscious awareness".

Because guys like this stay up late at night, thinking of new ways to trick "regular" folks, who are more trusting, or decent folk, who don't know there are guys like this who lie for a living. Professional liars.

This Kevin Hogan is a sleaze, anyone with experience in this can see it a mile away. But your average person doesn't have the specialized critical thinking skills to see what is being done to them, that is partly why it works on them.

So to say someone submits "voluntarily" to being UNCONSCIOUSLY tricked by professional manipulators, is an absurdity.

But of course, the sociopaths who do this, are full of rationalizations, they even say its GOOD to trick and take advantage of people. Every last one of these LGAT Gurus, from Werner Erhard through Scientology on down, is doing the same thing.

Tricking people without their conscious awareness.
Covert Influence.
Deception.
Fancy Lies.
Same thing.

That is what it is all about folks. To them, your Conscious Mind is their Enemy, and needs to be by-passed with lies and tactics, as that mind will analyze what they are doing to you, and not like to be taken advantage of.
This is why the more abusive LGAT's seek to DESTROY your critical faculties, and even your mind. They want to crush it once and for all.

They want primary CONTROL of your mind. They don't want you to think for yourself. THEY want to hold the locus of power, and make you into a sheeple, who will do what you are told.
They want to wreck your conscious mind, as it stands in the way of them making the most money off of you.

From what I see, this is what every single LGAT has in common, no matter how much they deny it, and lie about it. They want to [b:b135e2dc2c]influence you without your awareness[/b:b135e2dc2c], to do what THEY want you to do.
This is why if a person has highly developed critical thinking and skills of analysis, in can be much much harder to get you to do what they want.
That is why Skeptics are so hard to control and influence. Its like "herding cats". The LGAT guru's don't want to herd cats for a living. They want to create "sheeple" who will mindlessly follow, and give themselves up to be sheared.

And they are getting better at it every year. They work at this stuff 24/7, as it puts them on a power-trip, which is highly intoxicating.

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ughaibu
Okay, but for me the first question is why do people put themselves in the situation?
There are no cults or abusive groups without victims. ..why would anyone, particularly if they already had negative experience, voluntarily put themselves in these situations?

Quote
ughaibu
Okay, but for me the first question is why do people put themselves in the situation?
There are no cults or abusive groups without victims. Reading various posts on this board can be quite heart breaking, people who have already suffered a negative experience costing them years will ask "is this group okay?" or similar. For me this is the question, why would anyone, particularly if they already had negative experience, voluntarily put themselves in these situations?

What part of "deception" do you not understand?


EZ

The common thread definitely seems to be the blind leading the blind. Every case of LGAT involvement that I know of is initiated by trusted friends and family recruiting trusted friends and family. I don't know if that is very clear. Most recently I met someone who was harping on about the benefits of Landmark solely on the basis that it was his best friend's recommendation to pursue the cult. I said to him that he should tread very carefully because of the things I had experienced and learned about Landmark, but he quickly dismissed my concerns because his best friend had made such a strong impression on him.

The LGATers have surely worked out how to continue the growth of their sinister organisations and there is very little I (we) can do to persuade the blind until they open their own eyes. :shock:

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ughaibu
Okay, but for me the first question is why do people put themselves in the situation?
There are no cults or abusive groups without victims. Reading various posts on this board can be quite heart breaking, people who have already suffered a negative experience costing them years will ask "is this group okay?" or similar. For me this is the question, why would anyone, particularly if they already had negative experience, voluntarily put themselves in these situations?

I'll tell you my personal experience about being suckered into attending an LGAT:
It may surprise you that I'm actually quite skeptical and cautious by nature. When one of my best friends told me about the wonderful experience she had, I had no reason to doubt her as she had never, in the ten years I've known her, done anything but be trustworthy. My Mom and sister attednded as well, based on this friend's recommendation. They, too had a positive experience at first and I trusted them. Even still, I searched the internet to see what information I could find. At the time, I was thinking of going, there were lots of positive, and little to no negative information on the internet about this particular LGAT. The only negative info I found was that the business had some tax problems, but that seemed irrelavant to the actual program. I still had decided against going because of the cost, but when my Mom offered to pay for it as a gift, I finally decided to go.
When i went, I had an absolutely horrible experience, and the depression, and psychological damage to my self-esteem and trust will take months to recover from. How could three people who had been so trustworthy in my life up until then, send me to such a horrible place? Well the techniques utilized by these places are very powerful, so even people who I love very much weren't immune. These places rarely have to advertise, because word of mouth is so effective, and this eliminates most skeptisism in it's clients. The techniques are at their most powerful when you walk in already trusting them because a loved one told you that it was trustworthy. LGAT's thrive on this "trust chain".
The control techniques may linger for years in some people's minds, which may explain why some would put themselves through the same thing again, although I've not heard of that happening a lot myself.

I am convinced that these tactics work as well as they do is because those recommending the programs aren't paid. Lots of perfectly nice people who wouldn't dream of pushing some product on their friends and family don't think they are taking advantage of those who trust them because there's no money involved.


Ellen