There is a fine line between covert hypnosis and techniques of influence.  I say this because in my view, covert hypnosis is the art of causing someone to comply with your wishes without the subject putting up any kind of fight.  Furthermore, it applies to situations where the subject would not normally have complied.

Dr. Robert Cialdini is, in my view, a fantastic author on the topic of influence.  He would probably not describe his book as one about covert hypnosis, but I really think it is worth reading, and I think that if you stretch your definition of covert hypnosis, this book fits into the category nicely.

One of my favorite lessons is the power of the word “because”.  Cialdini describes an experiement conducted by Harvard social psychologiest Ellen Langer.  She demonstrated the power of the word “because” by approaching people who were in line to use the copy machine.  She approached the person at the front of the line and said, either:  ”Excuse me, I have five pages.  May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?”  Or, she said, “Excuse me, I have five pages.  May I use the Xerox machine?

Notice that there is only one difference between the two questions.  In the first scenario she provides a reason, by saying “because I’m in a rush”.

This “reason” is what I would call covert hypnosis.  Why?  Because when she provided a reason a whopping 94% of people said “sure, no prob … go ahead”.  When she provided no reason onlly 60% of people complied, and the other 40% said, “yeah, right, get to the back of the line”.

I tell you:  ”because” is a magic word.  It causes compliance because it implies that there is a reason for the request.  Human brains tend to accept reasons, even crappy reasons, automatically.  This truly is covert hypnosis at work.

Cialdini’s book can be viewed at Amazon.com here (click on the picture).  I’ve read it 3 times, given it out as a gift several times, and loaned out my own dog-eared copy to many people.  Get this book!

Technorati Tags: books, Cialdini, Covert Hypnosis, Influence

One of the best covert hypnosis tools you can learn to master is called “embedded commands”.  Quite simply, an embedded command is a sentence fragment that, when stripped out of the sentence, represents its own stand-alone command.  For example “need to scratch your nose” could be the command you want to embed within a sentence.  Or even simpler, you could just embed, “scratch your nose”.

To embed the command, you would simply use a sentence including the command.  You could simply say, “Some people think that it is not polite to scratch your nose in public”.

When embedding a command in covert hypnosis, it is important to make sure that you mark out the command with something unique.  Often people use a different tone of voice, or a slower tempo.  Some people prefer to shift their gaze directly into the other person’s eyes to use direct eye contact as the marker.  Whatever you do, just make sure that it is congruent!

There are just so many great tools in covert hypnosis.  It’s easy to find yourself interested in learning more, isn’t it?

Technorati Tags: conversational hypnosis, Covert Hypnosis

If you are interested in learning covert hypnosis then you absolutely must master the art of pacing and leading in regular conversation.  When I talk about pacing and leading in this article I’m specifically referring to the use of language, as opposed to the body pacing (mirroring/matching) that you lean in NLP.  I’m talking about pacing current experience. 

When you make statements that pace somebody’s current experience you create rapport, and you create unconscious agreement.  Here’s an example of pacing YOUR current experience:  You are reading an article about covert hypnosis.  The font size is suitable for many people, but some people like it larger and some people prefer smaller fonts. 

All I did was to give you a statement that was true.  That is pacing.  Now let’s talk about leading.  When you think about covert hypnosis, you are probably interested in knowing how to lead people. After the end of this post come back and re-read that sentence.  You’ll see I used leading right there.

Leading is where you make a statement that you want the other person to assume is true.  You want them to associate it to the previous pacing statement in an unconscious way.  You want their brain to think in terms of a cause and effect relationship between the pacing statements and the leading statements. 

Here’s a complete example: You are reading an article about covert hypnosis.  You’ve read several paragraphs now, so I know that this topic is quite interesting to you.  It’s interesting to a lot of people.  As you continue reading this blog, you’ll begin to notice that you can learn a lot from me.  You might start to look for ways that you can accelerate your learning of covert hypnosis through books.  Or even better, you might look for audio courses that you can purchase online.

I hope you see the beauty of this technique.  The first two statements in the above paragraph are truths.  The third statement is an assumption based on the two truths, and it will be deemed true by most readers.  The rest of the statements are leading statements.  The brain will unconsciously associate the leading statements to the pacing statements and this will cause them to be true in the readers’ mind.  

To use this tool you must start by understanding where you want to lead your subject.  Once you know the answer, you must simply pace their current experience and morph the verbal comments that you make into leading statements.  We’ve almost come to the end of this article.  The tool is very simple.  As you think about the simplity of the tool, and realize that it can be incorporated into everyday language, you can wonder where you’ll try it out in your own life.  The astute readers noticed that the last sentence was anothe pace and lead.

Covert hypnosis can be a lot of fun and the tools are simple, but require plenty of practise.  Stay the course.  Have fun.  Start using this stuff.

Technorati Tags: conversational hypnosis, covert persuasion, secret hypnosis