If you're interested in learning more about hypnosis, I highly recommend you check out Mike Mandel Hypnosis for Self Hypnosis CDs, or head over to Igor Ledochowski's site for his ultra-powerful conversational hypnosis course. Both are excellent resources. Thanks for visiting!

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!