Magic and mentalism rely much on misdirection. They lead your attention to one place so you’ll overlook what they’re really doing. Conversational hypnosis and persuasion, of course, work in a similar way.

Derren Brown caught my attention because he supposedly uses hypnosis, NLP, and other methods of persuasion. Sometimes he will explain what he did at the end of the show, like using embedded commands for example. I wasn’t always convinced. His conversational hypnosis skills are not THAT good from what I’ve gathered, but his skill of misdirection is phenomenal.

It wasn’t until I began to study magic and mentalism that I realized what he was really doing. His misdirection had persuaded me to accept his explanation, but his explanation may not have been what he’d really done at all.

Although it helps, you don’t have to study magic and mentalism to understand and use misdirection in conversational hypnosis and persuasion.

Any type of language pattern that causes a person to go inside themselves can be used for misdirection. Also, misdirection doesn’t necessarily have to be verbal. You can interrupt any kind of physical pattern or routine by simply deviating from it. For example, when you shake a person’s hand you have certain unconscious expectations because you’ve gone through the motions so many times.

When someone shakes your hand in a way you’re not used to or not expecting, it causes you to pause and perhaps start an internal dialogue, “What the hell was that?” Every so often someone comes and shakes your hand with a grip of steel or a hand which feels dead. Although they may not be consciously misdirecting you, the action still causes you to go internal and assess the situation.

So far I’ve covered a few different techniques.

Chaining nominalizations is a wonderful method of losing someone’s attention because they have to think constantly about what you’re really trying to say. They are forced to start applying their own meanings to the words you are using. Chaining nominalizations and using them with double binds actually takes a lot of practice before it really starts to flow, so it isn’t a method I recommend to beginners. For example…

“I can really appreciate your ability to make the excellent decision to commit to this project or the wonderful experience of your realization to accept this opportunity for growth.”

Uh, yeah…what did he just say exactly? Misdirection. There it is.

Or you can embed commands within stories. You’re not telling them to do anything, the characters in the story are.

One of the most simple ways to misdirect is to use an interrupt. Humans are pattern machines. They get into a rhythm and let their conscious minds drift. You can confirm this just by going out to the store or a restaurant. Look for someone who has a job which is routine. I’m always using interrupts to break people out of their trances.

For example, there are so many stores now that offer some sort of rewards card, be it a book store, grocery store, or coffee store franchise. It is routine to ask the customer if they have the right card or not. The usually expect one of two possible answers, yes or no. If you deviate from this pattern, you will interrupt their trance, and they will briefly go internal to make sense of what you just said. Perfect misdirection, allowing you to throw in whatever you want.

I usually just interrupt people’s patterns, but I don’t take it any further than that.

“Do you have our preferred rewards card?”

“What colors do your cards come in?”

“…” A few seconds pass. “Um, I’m sorry what did you say?”

A simple test, which I find very amusing, is to bring up a certain memory charged with emotion. Really get into it as if you are there all over again. Then once that emotion has taken you over, go ahead and pick a random stranger and ask them directions to somewhere, even if you already know how to get there. Write down your internal state, your own physiology as you perceive it, and their reaction. Make sure and try to maintain your awareness externally and listen for their tonality and watch their facial expressions and body language.

Try out every emotion you can think of: happiness, sadness, anger, curiosity, love, hate, and so on. Repeat emotions as often as necessary until you begin to recognize different patterns emerge. This is not something you can just read about. You need to experience this. Just remember to really feel that state before you approach someone. Ask three or four people a day for a few months, and note down every thing in your journal.

After you get a feel for how this works, you can try eliciting states in others. First you must establish rapport before you start asking someone questions that might elicit a certain emotion. Once you have rapport, begin by asking questions that will make them go internal and elicit a state. For example, if you were in an interview you might ask something like the following:

“Tell me about a time when you hired the perfect candidate. How did you know they were the right person for the job?”

Now listen to their vocabulary closely. What kind of representational system is predominant? Are they using visual, auditory, or kinesthetic words? What kind of language are they using?

When you are sure they are at the height of their internal experience, you can repeat what they said, using their language, and anchor their state by marking off a word or making a certain gesture. You can innocently just scratch your forehead or run your fingers through your hair.

Then later when it’s your turn to talk about yourself, use the same vocabulary, and trigger the anchor. Now they will associate that state with you.

This can be done with anything, really. Next time someone is describing a wonderful time they had somewhere, get them to enter that state again and anchor it. Then whenever they see you, go ahead and trigger that anchor. After some time they’ll begin to associate you with those feelings of fun, laughter, and wonder.

Here is an excellent example of reframing conveyed through metaphor:

There is a story of a farmer whose horse ran away. That evening the neighbors gathered to commiserate with him since this was such bad luck. He said, “May be.”

The next day the horse returned, but brought with it six wild horses, and the neighbors came exclaiming at his good fortune. He said, “May be.”

And then, the following day, his son tried to saddle and ride one of the wild horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. Again the neighbors came to offer their sympathy for the misfortune. He said, “May be.”

The day after that, conscription officers came to the village to seize young men for the army, but because of the broken leg the farmer’s son was rejected. When the neighbors came to say how fortunately everything had turned out, he said, “May be.”

As you read this, there is nothing to do now, nothing you have to think about or respond to. You don’t even have to expect anything in particular in this post because you don’t know how your unconscious mind is responding to my words. And after reading all of the material within this blog, you don’t even have to concern yourself at all about how you’re going to integrate this material.

We need a lot of skills to get along in this world. Everybody knows the importance of doing some practicing. Perhaps it’s been a long time since you remember being interested in something. I’m not really sure though. Each person is different. And you’re probably wondering how you’ll ever get turned on by this stuff.

I don’t know if you’ll ever want to actually use this information now or maybe just find yourself using it later on. How would life be different as an excellent conversational hypnotist, capable of weaving covert metaphors like a master story-teller? People have different ways of learning this material.

Some, of course, are interested in learning everything, but others pick and choose. It might only be one little thing that you will find of interest here, one or two subjects in their entirety, just a little part of each, and some of my material may not really be your cup of tea.

Which of this material is easiest for you – Advanced Language Patterns, Metaphor, NLP, Conversational Hypnosis or Storytelling? Which one of these do you have the least chance of giving up on?

What do you want to do after you master all these skills you read about at covertmetaphor.com?

The Swiss psychotherapist Carl Jung believed that there exists a set of universal symbols deeply embedded within the human psyche called archetypes, symbols which every human being reacts similarly to without conscious thought. These archetypes encompass all natural forms of the material universe.

Symbols are just as visual as any written language, but their difference in energy is noticeable. Symbols are the language of the unconscious mind, and hold within them a significant amount of emotional, psychological, and spiritual power. Symbols can inspire love, fear, hate, and peace. People will even die for a symbol. When enough imaginative force and emotion is applied to a symbol, it can control entire nations.

Anchors and Personal Symbols

In neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), anchors are associated with specific emotions, and can be triggered later to release emotional content based on a particular memory. Anchors can be visual, tactile and vocal, and tend to set more permanently when matched with a person’s dominant representational system.

Self-created symbols can produce the same effect as an anchor, and are in the author’s opinion a much more powerful method in affecting the unconscious mind to induce self-transformation. By creating a set of symbols, and attaching our own imaginative force and specific emotions to them, we can develop our own personal metaphorical language. This language can then be used to communicate our desires easily and directly to the unconscious mind. This is the key to the law of attraction.

Roll Your Own Symbol

• Sit yourself in a quiet spot where you will not be disturbed for ten to twenty minutes. Make yourself comfortable.
• Place a pen and notepad within arms length if you decide to draw the symbol (read further for details).
• Now for approximately five to ten minutes just breathe naturally through your nose, focusing your awareness on the breath, and the sensations it produces inside the nostrils.
• After some minutes or until you feel a deep sense of calm, intentionally bring up images and emotions related to the outcome of your desire. Wrap yourself up fully in these images and emotions, giving them vivid colors. Spin these colors and images around your body until you feel as if your desire has already been fulfilled.
• Then silence your thoughts and focus only on the pure emotion resonating within your being.
• Ask your unconscious mind to present you with a symbol which represents this desire. When a symbol appears within the dark theater of your mind, draw this symbol immediately on your notepad. Your constructed symbol does not necessarily need to be a drawn symbol. It can be a certain physical gesture or made-up word.

In subsequent meditations you will simply pull up the same images and emotions and mentally link them to your symbol. The more you do this, the stronger those emotions and images will be associated with your constructed symbol.

Begin to use this symbol in your art, notes, and scribbles. Create a paper talisman to carry in your pocket. If your symbol is a physical gesture then incorporate it into dance. If it is a word, use it in poetry and song. Be creative!

It is suggested that your symbols remain private until you are completely convinced of their power.

Some weeks later I happened upon a set of Milton Erickson’s books in a used bookstore. I hungrily bought them all and locked myself up in a room for the next few weeks. After I’d read about punctuation ambiguity I couldn’t wait to go out and work it into my conversations with all my friends. My friends and I went out regularly to the cafe near the university for hours at a time, discussing language, mathematics, chess, philosophy, and history.

I remember that afternoon vividly. I walked up to their table and said, “As I look at my watch closely what I’m doing I notice it’s already 4:30pm.” They all looked at my like, “so what?” They really had no idea what I had just done. Their conscious minds had latched onto the noun and not the verb meaning of watch. I had used punctuation ambiguity successfully and slipped in a suggestion. I’d been sure someone would have picked up on the odd structure of my sentence.

Punctuation ambiguity is a word with multiple meanings, that can be both a noun and a verb, but isn’t necessarily always the case. This word is usually referred to as a pivot word. My best results have come from constructing a sentence with the pivot word ending the first part of the sentence using a noun and using the verb meaning of the same pivot word to begin the command or suggestion. A few examples should make this clear.  These examples are off the top of my head, and not all that clever. Decide an outcome and spend a little time on these and no one will be the wiser. Makes you kind of wonder how much ambiguity is being used everyday to influence you through the media.

“So, you’re thinking about buying a new home in on my words closely.”

“It was crooked so I adjusted the picture yourself in my arms.”

“The fields were on fire and the sky was filled with smoke this cigarette and feel good now.”

“The stairs were a bit slippery and he said, “Open your mind your step and hold onto the railing.”

Punctuation ambiguities work well with metaphorical stories as well:

And then she wanted to know if I was going. “Going where?” I asked, unsure of the place this message deeply she was talking about.

Now, some of you may think this looks a bit strange and there’s no way someone wouldn’t notice this. I thought the exact same thing. The only time someone understood what I was doing is when I explained it to them. It is truly amazing how pivot words bypass the conscious mind so easily. Go ahead and take a few days to try it out in your daily conversations and tell me how it went.

Recently, I have attended a few sales meetings worth noting. Whenever I am given a business card with the word “sales” in their title, I force myself to remain external and aware of their words and body language. Many efficient salespeople do not always consciously know how they do what they do. They are just naturally good at what they do.

I was sitting for a sales presentation when I heard, “A lot of companies have budget for this now.” It was slipped in the conversation so smoothly. I observed those around me, but it was apparent it didn’t register at their conscious level. Why is this so effective?

A quantifier is a form of a presupposition. It is an assumption.

In my example the conscious mind will tend to focus on the direct statement following the presupposition. In order for the statement to make sense the presupposition needs to be accepted, which is usually done unconsciously. So, the listener will focus on the direct statement that there is a budget for this now, but we must presuppose there are a lot of companies. Here we are assuming there are a lot companies, but we don’t know how many. Perhaps there are really only two, who knows? But if there are a lot of companies that have a budget for this now, doesn’t that include us?

What if he had said, “Few companies have budget for this now.” Notice the shift in energy this statement causes.

It’s amazing how easily and even without thinking, many people who read my articles can learn so many things and make so many changes in their lives.

Each chosen story you intend to memorize needs to be
considered from all sensory angles. The story can be
memorized using all major representational systems
including visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (VAK) methods.

Repeat the following steps as many times as necessary
until the story becomes a part of you. I recommend choosing
healing or positive goal-oriented metaphors and stories
which will affect your listeners by helping them to discover their latent
capabilities. In addition, the following exercises will
embed the story deeply into the unconscious mind
transforming the storyteller as well.

1. Write it out.

After reading the story several times you should have a good
feeling of what kind of theme or moral the author is trying
to convey. Start by writing the story down on paper while
considering each word. Say every word out loud as you write
it. Think of different reasons the author may have chosen
that particular word and why. Perhaps you would have said
it differently?

2. Sing the story.

Sing a few sentences at a time. Apply any familiar melody
you can think of to it. The more absurd the melody is, the
easier it will stick. Sing in a high voice, and then sing
in a low voice. Repeat two or three sets of words over and
over until you memorize the full sentence and move on.
Do not be embarrassed. After all, no one is watching you,
right? Just belt it out.

3. Alter tonality and accent.

Use different tonalities as you read through the story out
loud. Slow down your voice and then speed it up. Play with
pitch. Again, read in a high voice and then try it out with
a really low voice. Read the story with different accents,
even different types of personalities.

4. Use a digital recorder.

A digital recorder comes in very handy for memorizing
large amounts of text. A computer with a microphone and a
free audio editor and recorder like Audacity will work just
as well. Write out the story again, only this time leave
one or two words out of each sentence. Now record yourself
while you read back this story, pausing where the word you
removed should have been. Now burn the audio file to CD or
transfer to your MP3 player.

As you listen back to your recording say the appropriate
word out loud when you come to its pause. Record your story
as many times as necessary until you have covered most of
the major words in each sentence.

5. Practice a mental rehearsal.

Imagine yourself in vivid color telling your story to a
group of people. Create your perfect setting. Feel the
temperature on your skin. Are you sitting or standing? How
does that feel? Work out how your voice will sound. Put on
your best clothes. You can even change the time period.

Is your audience smiling, laughing, or crying? This is
your inner landscape so do what you want. Tell your story
to as many imaginary groups as possible.

 

I don't know whether you've decided just how far you will take yourself as you learn what I write about because you might become aware of a whole new range of possibilities when you allow your unconscious mind to start using this information naturally in your everyday life.Because you may already have started to notice the changes in your quality of life as you allow yourself to learn these words effectively which means eventually you will have mastered all of the things I write about.Because a person may not know exactly how your unconscious will signal that you've already mastered this material means there is no need for you to picture yourself using the things I write about in your everyday life.As you can imagine by the time you hear yourself using these words naturally throughout your day, you'll really know how my writing is helping you to change your life for the better which means...

You might even come back here tomorrow to read more.

Ha ha! That kind of hypnotic language sounds better than it looks. Conjunctions such as ‘as‘, ‘because‘, ‘means‘, and ‘and‘ allow you to let your speech flow without pausing. The conscious mind eventually begins to give up, especially when so many of those type of presuppositions Dr. Milton Erickson was famous for, are thrown in. Pick your own theme and pick a victim (just kidding) to try similar language on. Note down their reactions.

For those salespeople…

As you choose which option you like better I don't whether you've decided to sign up for a monthly subscription or simply pay the full year now because it's OK not to make a decision between these two quickly, isn't it?