One really easy language pattern that you can start using right now is called a tag question.  If you’re reading this, then you probably have an interest in covert communication techniques, and you’d like to become more skilled at using NLP or hypnosis in everyday language, isn’t that right?

Tag questions are easy and effective.  They are also not strange sounding, so people have no idea what you’re doing.  They slip straight into he unconscious.  Look at the first paragraph again.  I used a tag question at the end.  It was, “isn’t that right”.

Whenever you make a statement about something to someone else, you can build in stronger compliance by getting the person to think “Yes” in their head.  They don’t need to actually SAY it out loud.  Often times thinking it is enough.  I’m sure you can think of times that you mentally agreed with someone without actually speaking, haven’t you?

(That was another tag question)

Here are a few examples of how to use tag questions as a language pattern:

1. It’s easy to learn new skills.  In fact, there are many skills that you’ve learned in your life, and when looking back you may have noticed it was easier to master the skill than you first though, wasn’t it?
2. People don’t always want to try new things.  Sometimes people hesitate because they make a particular picture in their mind, and the picture isn’t attractive.  And simply changing that mental picture can really effect someone’s desire to do something now, can’t it?
3. There is a form on this website that you can fill out to get access to free CDs with fantastic information about hypnosis.  It’s easy to fill out that form and get those CDs, isn’t it?

Technorati Tags: Covert Hypnosis, Language Patterns

Sometimes people make the art of covert hypnosis a lot more complicated than it really is.  It doesn’t always involve doing sneaky things to drop people into deep trances.  Sometimes all you need to do is tell a simple story to drop your message directly into the subject’s unconscious mind.

Think back to the last time you watched a movie.  Was there a particular scene that completely engaged you, and had you on the edge of your seat?  Why did your body respond this way?  Were you hypnotized?  Yes, in fact you were.  And it was done covertly.  A movie is a great example of covert hypnosis by telling stories.

In hypnosis, stories are also known as metaphors.  The easiest method to teach is the simple metaphor.  Imagine you wanted to convince a friend to go somewhere with you, but you anticipated the friend would hesitate.  You could simply tell a story about someone who did something they didn’t think they would enjoy, but it turned about to be fantastic.  At the end of the story you might want to explain how this made-up person learned that it can be a lot of fun to try new things.

After you tell the story, you change the subject briefly, and then in a few minutes, using the same tone of voice as with the story, you ask your friend to join you on the excursion.

The story that you tell can be true or fictitious.  It doesn’t matter.  So long as you embed a message within the story that will be obvious enough for the unconscious mind to understand, you’ll accomplish your goal.
Covert hypnosis is a powerful communication technology.  If you have positive intentions and use the skills ethically, you will find yourself feeling very good about what you’ve learned.  Story telling is one of the easiest methods of hypnosis to learn for a beginner.

I highly recommend Igor Ledochowski’s course called “The Power of Conversational Hypnosis” to learn exactly how to use stories, along with many other advanced techniques.  The money back guarantee really protects you.  Click here for details.

If you’re reading this article then I’m going to assume you are curious about the topic of hypnosis, and particularly covert hypnosis.

I’ve been involved with hypnosis since the early 1990s, and to me, covert hypnosis is identical to the skills used in therapeutic hypnosis, except that you don’t tell the subject what you are doing. This simply means that you need to be a bit more crafty about how you bring up certain subjects in ordinary conversation, because you won’t be telling the subject that you’re about to begin hypnosis.

Great stage hypnotists are masters of covert hypnosis. The volunteers from the audience thing they are simply being given some background about hypnosis, when in fact the hypnotist’s preamble is actually a trance induction. The subjects are in trance before the show really gets started. They just don’t know it.

The best way to learn about covert hypnosis is to get one-on-one training. But this can be quite expensive. When I first got trained in Ericksonian Hypnosis I paid nearly $2000 for a two-weekend course. Not everyone can afford this.

The next-best alternative is to purchase training material over the Internet and study on your own, or with a friend. There are several courses available. Igor Ledochowski has a superb audio course. These tend to run you around $200, but usually come with a money-back guarantee. Whatever you buy, make sure you have a guarantee to protect you.

The last option I’d recommend is training through books. This is definitely the cheapest way to go, but you will miss out on the audio component. Your own voice is your most important hypnotic tool, and learning how to use it is hard to do with a book. Books are better for advanced students because books can present you with new ideas to try out after you’ve already mastered the use of your own voice and language patterns.

I do not recommend random Internet surfing to learn about covert hypnosis. You’ll end up learning incorrect techniques, and other useless information. Stick to learning from professionals who know what they are doing. You get what you pay for, after all.

One course I recommend is The Power of Conversational Hypnosis, by Igor Ledochowski. I’ve gone through the entire course and he teaches some seriously advanced stuff along with the basics.  And it comes with a 60-day money back guarantee. Click here for more details.

If you understand the embedded suggestion languge pattern of covert hypnosis, then this little implementation of it will catch your interest.

You can use the phrase “I said to myself” to bury a suggestion in a conversation.  Quoting yourself is just part of a mini-story that takes the other person’s unconscious “armour” off.

For example:

When I was in a situation like that once, I said to myself, “Just make a decision and move forward”, and then I was much more clear about my direction.  When I first hit a roadblock I said to myself, “You’ll surprise yourself by finding a way around the problem”, and sure enough I managed to come up with a creative solution.

Using this pattern can be very effective.  I remember telling myself “just use this pattern more often” when I was first learning about hypnosis.

If you are doing any work in covert hypnosis then you absolutely have to start using the quotes technique as a way to embed commands.  It’s simple, brilliant, and effective.

Here is how it works.  You simply decide up front what you want to embed as a command.  Then you make up something that someone *else* could have said where that command is built-in as part of the sentence. Finally, you deliver the command to your subject.

Say you wanted to ensure that your friend cleared his schedule on Friday night so that he could help you plan an event.  You know he has something interesting going on, and will probably try to avoid it if you just ask him directly.  After building rapport you might say:

“I was reading a really interesting newspaper article this morning.  The columnist had done a tone of research on the importance of giving.  He interviewed a bunch of people who were really generous with their time or money, and then he interviewed a bunch of people who were really stingy about helping others.  Here’s what he said that really made me think.  It’s important to dedicate enough time to help people.  It always comes back to reward you in the end” (italics marks out the embedded command).

…and then you can subtly shift gears to another topic.  A minute or so later, you simply ask for help and you’ll very likely get it.  So if your friend was originally going to say “no” and make his other event seem much moe important, you’ll have seeded a feeling of “need to help” within him.

This doesn’t classify as what most people would consider “hypnosis”, because there is no formal trance induction.  I say who cares!  The point is that you’ve used covert techniques to manipulate someone else’s state of mind and his or her behavior.  That’s what you’re after, right?

I was recently on vacation in the Caribbean with my family.  My wife’s aunt was with us on this trip (let’s call her Carol), and she is one of those people who has a real problem believing that there is any such thing as hypnosis.

Remember that hypnosis is simply a tool to get people to act on an unconscious level.  Anything that accomplishes this can be called “hypnosis” even if it doesn’t look like a trance, etc.

Ironically, although Carol is not a believer in hypnosis, she is a masterful negotiator when it comes to haggling over price.

I was standing beside her one evening when she was buying some jewelry to take back home.  She ended up taking a common influence strategy (that the vendor tried to use on her) and flipping it completely back onto him with total success.  She used HIS tool against him.  I loved her perfect execution.

Here is what happened.

She wanted to buy 3 items.  The first item was $15, but the vendor immediately said he’d drop the price to $10 for her.  The second item was also $15 and after only 30 seconds of discussion, the price became $15 for both items.  This is all very standard stuff.  Never ever believe the first or second price you are given from a vendor in a Caribbean vacation area.

Here is where it gets clever.  Carol showed some hesitation about the price on her expression.  Seeing this, the vendor moved in to use a tactic known as “commitment”.  He put the two items in an envelop so she could hold onto them.  This seems harmless but Carol is left holding an envelope and unconsciously that is a lot like having decided to buy the items.

I lean towards her to say to her, “You know what he’s doing here right?  He’s building in commitment”.  She looks at me as if to say “Fool - I’m a master … watch me flip this around on him”.

At this point Carol is holding an envelope with two items inside.  She then expresses an interest in a third piece.  This one, the vendor says, is normally $20.  She likes this piece, and casually drops it into the envelop as she tells him that she’s interested in all three.

At this point, Carol had been already offered a price of $15 for the two items.  She tells the vendor “I like all three - I’ll give you $15 for the three”.

The vendor looks at her as if to suggest this is crazy.  Keep in mind that because she already put the third item in the envelope he now envisions himself as already having sold all three items.  He’s under more unconscious pressure to deal because of this.

He softly refuses the $15 offer for all three items.  Carol puts the envelope down in front of him softly.  She says, “Well - hold onto these … I might be back.  I’m just going to take a look around a bit more”.

As we shift our bodies towards the exit, he picks up the envelope and hands it to Carol saying “Ok”.  He took the $15.

She got his initial asking price from $55 down to $15.  Not bad.

Was this covert hypnosis?  Sort of yes, sort of no.  Sure, there was no trance induction but she certainly had his attention focused on selling three items, and she controlled his unconscious behavior by reversing the “commitment” trick on him.

Way to go, Carol!

The Milton Model in Ericksonian Hypnosis is a wonderful thing.  It’s all about being artfully vague.  Experience shows that saying something that sounds official, but without providing a lot of detail, will cause most people to simply accept it as truth.  Just like experience shows that vitamin C is necessary to prevent scurvy.

I didn’t explain it ahead of time (except for the title of this post), but I used a language pattern there to create influence.  That pattern is to say, “experience shows … (fill in the blank)”.

Who’s experience?  What experience exactly?  How exactly does it show this?  These are all questions that the Meta Model (as taught in NLP ) would teach you to ask. But most people won’t ask those questions.  They’ll accept the statement as truth.

A salesman could say “Experience shows that customers who buy this model of vehicle have the greatest level of satisfaction over the life of the vehicle”.  It’s typically going to be accepted.

This pattern can be used to influence people.  You can use it within a covert hypnosis session, or you can use it in ordinary conversation.  After all, there really is no difference, right?

Technorati Tags: Covert Hypnosis, Influence

You can improve your covert hypnosis abilities by getting good at inserting confusion into your communication.  You should get good at this just like you should get good at telling great jokes.  What I mean by this is that you don’t go around telling jokes non-stop.  You’ll look like an idiot of you do.  In the same way, you don’t want to walk around speaking in confusion-laden language all hours of the day.  People will just assume you are a moron.  So use this stuff gracefully.

Confusion principles are a way to overload the conscious mind with language that seems to be tough to understand.  As you do this, the critical faculty (sometimes called critical factor), or “guardian of the gate” of your unconscious mind, is temporarily overwhelmed.  When this happens, you can drop suggestions straight into the unconscious mind.

Here is a way to use the confusion technique in ordinary language.  Read this aloud if you want to get the best impact:

“Yesterday I was at a store and I was trying to decide if I should buy this one particular set of shoes.  They were the last pair that was left, and I wasn’t sure if they weren’t the right size for me.  The first store that I visited was the last store that would close at the mall that night, and there were many stores left for me to visit to determine if the right shoe for me would be avaible in the right size, and I didn’t think it would be right for me to go home with just whatever was left, so I wanted to make sure that the right shoe was what I had in my hands, at the end of the trip.  Sometimes the first pair you pick out are the right ones for you but other times the last ones you find are the only ones that are left and they end up being better than the first pair that you weren’t sure were not right for you “

Now - I hope that you found this whole sequence confusing!  That’s the point.  Right in the thick of the confusion you could simply look at the target and say whatever you like (preferably in the form of an embedded command).

In the example above I layered in several confusing items.  I used the word “right” in the context of right/wrong and also right/left.  I mixed them together. I also threw in a variety of uses of the word first/last in varying ways to add more confusion.  Finally I used double negatives such as “I wasn’t sure if they weren’t the right size for me”.  This double negative use really tends to add to the overall confusion.

Now - I’m not sure that you shouldn’t decide not to forget to use this tool when you’re not yet sure if you’ll want to begin to learn covert hypnosis today, or perhaps you’d just like to listen to some great free CDs to help you get started.

Technorati Tags: confusion technique, Covert Hypnosis, Language Patterns

I live in Canada, so we did see a lot of coverage of the US elections, but not nearly as much as people in the USA would see on a daily basis. In covert hypnosis circles, I had heard that Obama was using the principles of covert hypnosis, or conversational hypnosis in his speeches. I never really dug into it until tonight.

I found this 65 page PDF document online. It is extremely thorough. Listen folks, this is absolute required reading if you are interested in covet hypnosis. The author goes through example after example to show how Barack Obama, in his opinion, is using all of the classic Ericksonian methods to induce trance, create rapport, implant suggestions, set anchors, etc.

Is there anything wrong with doing this? The author really seems to believe Obama is borderline crlminal for doing this. I completely disagree. I think that as a politician, sales person, lawyer, motivational speaker, coach, therapist (or insert profession here), your JOB is to learn how to influence people. If you are going to influence people then you better understand the tools of covert hypnosis.

Hypnosis is a totally natural state that people go into and out of many times per day. It happens all the time. Knowing how to use it is not a crime. It’s just smart.

Interestingly - the author of this report also makes several mentions of Igor Ledochowski’s conversational hypnosis course (calling it the most powerful course of its kind availbable). I completely agree. I have listened to Igor’s material and even though I have many MANY years of training and practice, I have to say that Igor’s course is a great way to learn and stay on top of the key skills. It is not cheap, but it’s worth every penny ten times over.

You can get access to 3 free audio CDs from Igor by joining my hypnosis newsletter.

Whether we’re talking about covert hypnosis, stage hypnosis or therapeutic hypnosis, people are always asking, “is hypnosis real of fake”.  It never ceases to amaze me how people will ask this question even when faced with obvious evidence that hypnosis is very real.  My belief is that people will often refuse to acknowledge the power of hypnosis simply because they don’t understand it, or because they think it is something they cannot control and would therefore rather avoid discussing.  It is these people who will say hypnosis is fake, a big show, blah blah blah.

Here is how I know hypnosis is very real:

• When I first saw a stage hypnosis show in the 1990s by one of the best hypnotists in the world, a guy literally peed his pants because he thought he was on a planet that was about to blow up, and “Scotty” from Star Trek would not beam him up because he was on a coffee break.  This guy was an ordinary guy and not an Oscar-winning actor.  He couldn’t possibly have acted this well (or he’d be a movie star)
• I witnessed a guy getting his memory back after another stage hypnosis show where the post-hypnotic suggestion was to forget everything only until entering the washroom.  Then all memories would safely and enjoyably come back.  We took the guy into the washroom and he literally looked like he walked into a brick wall.  As soon as he got past the door he stopped and started blushing in a way that cannot be consciously controlled.  You have to think about these things to realize people cannot fake these reactions.
• When my wife was pregnant with our second child the morning sickness was unbearable for her.  We were about to go on a trip.  I took her to a hypnotherapist who was trained by my teacher (it’s often hard to to therapeutic hypnosis on someone you know, better to take them to an “authority”).  After that day my wife had no more morning sickness for the rest of the pregnancy
• I’ve been using self-hypnosis for years now.  I have put myself into some VERY deep trances and had some very wild experiences.  I don’t need any more convincing than this

I could go on and on about hypnosis and how I know with absolute certainty that it is real.  But if you still need convincing then ask yourself if you have ever noticed, while watching a movie, that your entire body was tense during a scary scene, or an action scene.  Why would your body become so tense?  The only explanation is because you are unconsciously reacting to the movie as if you were actually in it.  Your mind sees the movie, gets into a particular state, and then physiologically responds as if you were in that movie.  There is a level of separation, you won’t get the same adrenalin rush as if someone was actually chasing you, but you get a milder version of this response.  That is, in a sense, a form of hypnosis.

Covert hypnosis is simply one method for using hypnotic skills.  You learn the skills and you employ them in regular conversation.  The goal is to induce trance, or to simply cause a state change within another person and implant a particular suggestion.

Some people are naturally skilled at covert hypnosis and they don’t realize it.  If you are one of those people, fantastic.  But if you are not, and you’d like to become a better communicator, then you should consider learning these skills.

You can always get access to 3 free audio CDs about hypnosis by subscribing to my email newsletter.  It’s totally free, you’ll learn useful stuff, and the list is managed by a reputable company (aweber), so you know your info is never shared and you can always unsubscribe with a single click of your mouse if you don’t like what you get.  But you’ll enjoy it.  I have a lot of experience on this topic, and I think you’ll benefit.